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"  BETTINA  THREW  BACK  HER   VEIL  " 


A  Manifest  Destiny 


BY 


JULIA  MAGRUDER 

AUTHOR  OF  "A  MAGNIFICENT  PLEBEIAN1 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

IQOO 


Copyright,  1900,  by  JULIA  MACRUDER. 

All  rights  res  trued. 


V 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


"  BETTINA  THREW  BACK  HER  VEIL  "...     Frontispiece 

SHE  SANK  BACK  IN  HER  CHAIR      ....  Facing  p.     34 

'"AND  WHO  IS  THIS  HANDSOME  BOY?'"    .  "         60 

"'THE  MONEY  WAS  PARTLY  MY  OWN'"    .  "        100 

"THE  VERY  SPIRIT  OF  WIDOWHOOD"  .    .  "       168 
"'TRULY,  MY  CHILD,  IT  is  A  WRETCHED 

STORY'" "       190 


2137213 


A  MANIFEST  DESTINY 


CHAPTER  I 

BETTINA  MOWBKAY,  walking  the  deck 
of  the  ocean  steamer  bound  for  England, 
was  aware  that  she  was  observed  with  in- 
terest by  a  great  many  pairs  of  eyes.  Certainly 
the  possessors  of  these  eyes  were  not  more  inter- 
ested in  her  than  she  was  in  the  interpretation 
of  their  glances.  It  was,  indeed,  of  the  first  im- 
portance to  her  to  know  that  she  was  being  es- 
pecially noticed  by  the  men  and  women  of  the 
world,  who  in  large  part  made  up  the  passenger 
list,  since  her  beauty  was  her  one  endowment  for 
the  position  in  the  great  world  which  all  her  life 
she  had  intended  and  expected  to  occupy.  She 
was  anxious,  therefore,  to  know  whether  the 
personal  appearance  which  had  been  rated  so 
high  in  the  obscure  places  hitherto  known  to  her 
A  1 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

would  or  would  not  hold  its  own  when  she  got  out 
into  life,  as  it  were. 

Therefore,  as  Miss  Mowbray  paced  the  deck, 
at  the  side  of  the  erect  elderly  woman  who  had 
been  her  nurse  and  was  now  her  maid,  she  was 
vigilantly  regardful  of  the  looks  which  were 
turned  upon  her,  and  at  times,  by  straining  her 
ears,  she  could  even  catch  a  word  or  two  of  com- 
ment. Both  looks  and  words  were  gratifying  in 
the  extreme.  They  not  only  confirmed  the  pre- 
vious verdict  passed  upon  her  beauty,  but  they 
gave  evidence  to  her  keen  intuition  that,  judged 
by  a  higher  standard,  she  had  won  a  higher 
tribute. 

Yet,  ardent  as  this  admiration  was  on  the  one 
side,  and  grateful  as  it  was  on  the  other,  there 
the  matter  stopped.  To  those  who  would  have 
approached  her  more  closely  Bettina  set  up  a 
tacit  barrier  which  no  one  had  been  able  to  cross, 
and,  after  several  days  at  sea,  she  was  still  lim- 
ited to  the  society  of  her  maid.  Those  who  had 
spoken  to  her  once  had  been  so  politely  repelled 
that  they  had  not  spoken  again,  and  many  of 
those  who  had  felt  inclined  to  speak  had,  on 
coming  nearer  to  her,  refrained  instinctively. 

There  was  something,  apart  from  her  beauty, 
•which  attracted  the  eye  and  the  imagination  in 
2 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

this  tall  girl  in  her  deep  mourning.  This,  per- 
haps, was  the  twofold  aspect  which  her  differ- 
ent moods  and  expressions  gave  to  her.  At 
one  time  she  looked  so  profoundly  sad.  dejected, 
almost  despairing,  that  it  was  easy  to  connect  her 
mourning  dress  with  the  loss  of  what  had  been 
dearest  to  her.  At  another  time  there  was  a 
buoyancy,  animation,  vividness,  in  her  look  which 
made  her  black  clothes  seem  incongruous  in  any 
other  sense  than  that  in  which  a  dark  setting  is 
sometimes  used  to  throw  into  relief  the  brilliancy 
of  a  jewel. 

And  these  two  outward  manifestations  did,  in 
truth,  represent  the  dual  nature  which  was  Bet- 
tina's.  Her  mother,  who  had  studied  her  with 
a  keen  and  affectionate  insight,  had  often  told 
her  that  the  two  key-notes  of  her  nature  were 
love  and  ambition.  So  far,  all  the  ardor  of  Bet- 
tina's  heart  had  been  centred  in  her  delicate,  ex- 
quisite little  old  mother,  whom  she  had  loved 
with  something  like  frenzy ;  and  it  was  from  the 
loss  of  this  mother  that  she  was  now  enduring  a 
degree  of  sorrow  which  might  perhaps  have  over- 
whelmed her,  had  not  the  other  strong  instinct  of 
nature  acted  as  an  antidote.  After  some  weeks 
of  what  seemed  like  blank  despair,  the  girl  had 
roused  herself  with  a  sort  of  desperation,  and 
3 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

looked  about  her  to  see  what  was  yet  left  to  her 
in  life.  Then  it  was  that  ambition  had  come  to 
her  rescue.  "With  a  hardened  feeling  in  her 
breast  she  told  herself  that  she  could  never  love 
again  in  the  way  in  which  she  had  loved  her 
mother,  so  she  must  make  the  most  of  her  oppor- 
tunity to  become  a  brilliant  figure  in  the  world. 

This  opportunity,  fortunately,  was  quite  with- 
in sight.  A  path  had  been  opened  before  her 
feet  by  which  she  might  walk  to  a  higher  rank 
and  position  than  even  her  extravagant  dreams 
had  led  her  to  expect. 

In  the  isolation  of  her  narrow  village  life  she 
had  read  in  the  papers  accounts  of  the  English 
aristocracy ;  and  to  show  off  her  beauty  in  such 
an  atmosphere,  and  be  called  by  a  titled  name, 
had  fired  her  imagination  to  such  a  degree  tha/i 
her  good  mother  had  had  many  a  pang  of  fear 
for  the  future  of  her  child. 

When  Bettina  found  herself  alone,  the  one  pro- 
found attachment  of  her  heart  severed  by  death, 
she  seemed  to  have  no  hope  of  relief  from  the 
dire  oppression  of  her  position,  save  that  which 
lay  in  the  possibilities  of  worldly  enjoyment  which 
might  be  in  store  for  her  if  she  chose  to  accept 
them.  These  took  the  form  of  a  definite  oppor- 
tunity in  the  person  of  one  whom  her  mother 
4 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

entirely  trusted  and  approved,  and  this  in  itself 
was  enough  for  Bettina  now.  It  was  little  less 
than  a  marvellous  prospect  for  a  girl  in  her  po- 
sition, but  it  had  come  about  quite  simply. 

The  rector  of  the  church  in  the  village  where 
Mrs.  Mowbray  and  her  daughter  lived  was  an 
Englishman  of  good  family,  the  Kev.  Arthur 
Spotswood  by  name.  When  his  young  relative, 
Horace  Spotswood,  who  was  cousin  and  heir  to 
Lord  Hurdly,  came  to  travel  in  America,  it  was 
but  natural  that  he  should  visit  the  rector  in  his 
home.  Natural,  too,  it  was  that  he  should  there 
encounter  Bettina  Mowbray;  and  as  he  thought 
her  the  most  charming  and  most  beautiful  woman 
he  had  ever  seen,  and  as  his  affections  were  quite 
disengaged,  it  was  almost  a  matter  of  course  that 
he  should  fall  in  love  with  her. 

So  aware  of  this  was  Bettina  that  when,  one 
morning  she  had  met  and  talked  to  the  young 
fellow  at  the  rectory,  she  wound  up  the  account 
of  the  meeting  which  she  gave  to  her  mother 
by  saying,  quite  simply : 

"He  will  ask  me  to  marry  him,  mamma,  and 
I  shall  say  yes.  So  for  a  short  time  I  shall  be 
Mrs.  Horace  Spotswood,  the  wife  of  a  diplomat 
at  the  Russian  court,  and  ultimately  I  shall  be 
Lady  Hurdly,  with  a  London  mansion,  several 
5 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

country  places,  and  one  of  the  greatest  positions 
in  English  society." 

"  My  child,  my  poor  child  !"  said  the  mother, 
in  a  tone  of  distress,  "  what  is  to  be  the  end  of 
yonr  inordinate  ambition  for  the  things  of  the 
world?  You  have  got  to  discover  the  vanity 
and  hollowness  of  them  some  time,  but  what 
must  you  suffer  on  your  way  to  this  experience  ! 
Money  and  position  cannot  bring  happiness  in 
marriage.  Nothing  can  do  that  but  love." 

"But,  you  see,  I  propose  to  have  love  too," 
was  the  gay  response.  "  I  assure  you  it  will  not 
be  a  difficult  matter  to  love  such  a  man  as  this, 
and  I  assure  you  also  that  he  is  fathoms  deep  in 
love  with  me  already.  He  is  manly,  handsome, 
healthy,  well-bred,  and  altogether  charming.  As 
to  my  ever  loving  any  created  being  as  I  love  you, 
mother  darling,  that,  I  have  always  told  you,  is 
out  of  the  question  ;  but  I  can  imagine  myself 
caring  a  good  deal  for  this  young  heir  of  Lord 
Hnrdly." 

"  Bettina,"  said  the  mother,  gravely,  laying  her 
hands  on  her  daughter's  shoulder  and  looking 
deep  into  her  eyes,  "  you  will  have  to  come  to  it 
by  suffering,  my  child,  but  you  will  come  to 
it  at  last  —  the  knowledge  that  even  the  love 
which  you  give  to  me  is  slight  and  inadequate, 
6 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

and  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  love 
which  you  will  one  day  feel  for  the  man  who, 
as  yonr  husband,  shall  call  forth  your  highest 
feeling.  I  believe  this  with  firm  conviction,  and 
I  beg  you  not  to  throw  away  yonr  chance  of  a 
woman's  best  heritage.  Don't  marry  this  man, 
or  any  man,  until  you  can  feel  that  even  the 
great  love  you  have  given  me  is  poor  compared 
with  that.  Heaven  knows  I  love  you,  child,  and 
mother-love  is  stronger  than  daughter-love  ;  but 
I  could  not  love  you  so  well  or  so  worthly  if  I 
had  not  loved  your  father  more." 

These  words,  so  impatiently  listened  to,  were 
destined  to  come  back  to  Bettina  afterward, 
though  at  the  time  she  resented  the  very  sug- 
gestion of  what  they  predicted. 

Her  instinct  about  young  Spotswood  had  been 
exactly  true.  He  had  become  fascinated  with 
her  during  their  first  interview,  and  had  followed 
up  the  acquaintance  with  ardor,  making  her  very 
soon  a  proposal  of  marriage. 

Lord  Hurdly,  his  cousin,  was  unmarried,  it  ap- 
peared, and  was  an  inveterate  enemy  to  matri- 
mony. Horace  Spotswood  was  his  nearest  of  kin 
and  legal  heir.  But  Lord  Hurdly  was  not  over 
sixty  two  or  three,  and  was  likely  to  live  a  long 
time.  Finding  it,  perhaps,  not  very  agreeable 
7 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

to  be  constantly  reminded  that  another  man 
would  some  day  stand  in  his  shoes,  his  lordship 
had  procured  for  Horace  a  diplomatic  position 
at  St.  Petersburg,  where,  although  the  society 
was  delightful,  the  pay  was  small.  As  his  heir, 
however,  Lord  Hurdly  made  him  a  very  liberal 
allowance,  and  with  this  it  was  easy  for  Horace 
to  indulge  his  taste  for  travel.  In  this  way  he 
had  come  to  America,  intending  to  see  it  exten- 
sively ;  but  he  met  Bettina,  and  from  that  mo- 
ment gave  up  every  other  thought  but  the  dom- 
inant one  of  winning  her  for  his  wife. 

Even  when  he  had  asked  and  been  accepted  he 
could  not  leave  her  side,  but  concluded  to  await 
there  Lord  Hurdly's  answer  to  his  letter  announc- 
ing his  engagement.  He  was  not  without  cer- 
tain misgivings  on  this  point,  but  he  had  written 
so  convincingly,  as  he  thought,  of  Bettina's 
beauty,  breeding,  and  fitness  for  the  position  of 
Lady  Hurdly  that  was  to  be,  that  he  would  not 
and  could  not  believe  that  his  cousin  would  dis- 
approve. Besides,  he  was  too  blissfully  happy  to 
grieve  over  problematical  troubles,  and  so  he 
quite  gave  himself  up  to  the  joys  of  his  present 
position  and  ardent  dreams  of  the  future. 

It  happened,  however,  that  Lord  Hurdly's  let- 
ter, when  it  came,  was  a  cold,  curt,  and  most  de- 
8 


A    MANIFEST   DESTINY 

cicled  refusal  to  consent  to  the  marriage.  He 
objected  chiefly  on  the  score  of  Bettina's  being 
an  American,  though  he  did  not  hesitate  to  say 
also  that  he  considered  his  heir  a  fool  to  think  of 
marrying  a  woman  without  fortune,  when  he 
might  so  easily  do  better.  In  conclusion,  he  said 
that  if  this  infatuated  nonsense,  as  he  called  it, 
went  on,  he  would  withdraw  his  allowance  from 
the  very  day  of  the  marriage.  He  ended  by  hop- 
ing that  Horace  would  come  to  his  senses,  and  let 
him  know  that  the  thing  was  at  an  end. 

Poor  Horace !  He  would  fain  have  kept  this 
letter  from  Bettina,  but  she  insisted  upon  seeing 
it.  Having  done  so,  she  became  fired  with  a 
keen  desire  to  triumph  over  this  obdurate  op- 
position, and  when  Horace  asked  her  if  she  would 
still  fulfil  her  pledge,  in  the  face  of  his  altered 
fortunes,  she  agreed  with  rather  more  ardor  of 
feeling  than  she  had  hitherto  shown. 

The  truth  was,  Bettina  had  disappointed  him 
in  this  last  respect.  Her  mother  was  so  obviously 
and  unquestionably  her  first  thought,  and  herv 
mother's  failing  health  was  so  plainly  a  grief 
which  his  love  could  not  counterbalance,  that 
he  at  times  had  pangs  of  jealousy,  of  which  he 
afterward  felt  ashamed.  "Was  not  this  intense 
love  for  her  mother  in  itself  a  proof  of  her  great 
9 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

capacity  of  loving,  and  must  he  not,  with  patient 
waiting,  one  day  see  himself  loved  in  like  man- 
ner? Still,  he  chafed  under  the  fact  that  every 
day  her  mother  became  more  and  more  the  object 
of  her  time  and  attention,  so  that  he  saw  her  now 
more  rarely  and  for  shorter  periods.  She  always 
explained  this  fact  by  saying  that  the  invalid  was 
more  suffering  and  in  need  of  her,  and  she  never 
seemed  to  think  it  possible  that  this  excuse  would 
not  be  all-sufficing. 

At  last  a  clay  came  which  brought  him  what  he 
had  been  fearing  —  a  summons  to  return  to  his 
post  of  duty.  At  one  time  he  would  have  at- 
tempted to  get  a  longer  leave,  even  at  some  risk ; 
but  now,  with  the  prospect  of  having  his  allow- 
ance from  England  withdrawn,  he  dared  not  do 
so.  He  knew  that  it  would  require  great  econ- 
omy for  two  to  live  on  what  had  once  seemed  so 
inadequate  for  one,  and  he  laid  the  matter  frankly 
before  Bettina.  She  was  full  of  hope  that  Lord 
Hurdly  would  relent,  and  spoke  so  indifferently 
about  their  lack  of  money  that  he  loved  her  all 
the  more  for  it. 

He  had  some  hope,  in  his  ardent  soul,  that  he 
might  persuade  Bettina  to  be  married  at  once 
and  go  with  him,  but  when  he  ventured  to  pro- 
pose this  he  found  that  the  mere  suggestion  of 
10 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

her  leaving  her  mother,  then  or  ever,  made  her 
almost  angry.  She  insisted  that  her  mother 
would  get  better;  that  when  the  weather  changed 
she  would  be  braced  up  and  strengthened,  and 
then,  she  hoped,  a  thorough  change  would  do 
her  good.  So  her  plan  was  to  let  her  lover  go  at 
once,  and  some  months  later,  when  Mrs.  Mow- 
bray  should  be  stronger,  they  would  go  to  Eng- 
land together,  and  there  Spotswood  could  meet 
her  and  they  could  be  married. 

With  this  promise  he  was  obliged  to  go.  It 
was  a  new  and  annoying  experience  for  him  to 
have  to  consider  the  question  of  money  so  closely. 
True,  he  was  Lord  Hurdly's  heir-at-law,  and  he 
co aid  not  be  disinherited,  so  far  as  the  title  and 
entailed  estates  were  concerned,  but  it  was  wholly 
within  the  power  of  the  present  lord  to  deprive 
him  of  the  other  properties,  and  he  knew  Lord 
Hurdly  well  enough  to  understand  that  he  was 
tenacious  of  any  position  once  taken. 

So  he  said  farewell  to  Bettina  with  a  sad  heart. 
He  was  ardently  willing  to  give  up  money  and 
ease  and  to  endure  hardness  for  her  sake,  but  he 
would  have  wished  to  feel  that  the  sadness  and 
depression  in  which  Bettina  parted  from  him 
had  been  the  echo  of  what  was  in  his  own  heart, 
rather  than,  as  he  was  quite  aware,  the  deeper 
11 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

care  and  sorrow  of  her  anxiety  about  her  moth- 
er's health. 

Once  away  from  her,  however,  the  strong 
flame  of  his  love  burned  so  vividly  that  he 
wrote  her,  by  almost  every  mail,  letters  of  such 
heart-felt  love  and  sympathy  and  adoration  that 
he  could  but  feel  confident  that  they  would  bring 
him  a  reply  in  kind.  When  at  last  her  letters 
did  come,  they  were  so  short,  scant,  and  preoc- 
cupied that  they  fell  like  blows  upon  his  heart. 
When  he  thought  of  the  passionately  loving  let- 
ters that  she  was  getting  almost  daily,  while  he 
got  so  rarely  these  half-hearted  and  insufficient 
ones,  his  pride  became  aroused,  and  he  decided 
that  he  would  imitate  her  to  the  extent  of  writing 
more  rarely,  even  if  he  could  not  find  it  in  his 
heart  to  write  to  her  coolly,  as  she  did  to  him. 
In  this  way  it  came  to  pass  that  there  was  a  dis- 
tinct change  in  the  tone  of  his  letters  to  her.  As 
day  by  day,  and  sometimes  week  by  week,  passed 
without  his  hearing  from  her,  and  as  her  letters, 
when  they  came,  continued  to  speak  only  of  her 
mother's  health  and  her  grief  about  it,  the  young 
fellow's  love  and  pride  were  alike  so  wound- 
ed that  he  forced  himself,  so  far  as  his  nature 
and  feelings  would  allow,  to  imitate  her  atti- 
tude to  him,  and  to  cease  the  expression  of  the 
12 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

vehement  love  for  her  in  which  he  got  no  re- 
sponse. 

At  last,  after  a  longer  interval  than  usual,  he 
got  a  letter  from  Bettina,  which  told  him  that 
her  mother  was  dead — had,  indeed,  been  dead 
and  buried  almost  two  weeks  before  she  had 
roused  herself  to  write  to  him. 

In  the  tone  of  this  letter  there  was  a  sort  of 
desperate  resolution  that  showed  that  a  reaction 
had  come  on,  under  the  stress  of  which  she  had 
been  roused  to  act  with  energy.  She  announced 
that  as  she  had  found  it  intolerable  to  stay  where 
she  was,  she  would  sail  for  Europe  at  once.  She 
fixed  the  23d  of  June  as  the  day  on  which  she 
had  decided  to  sail.  In  reality,  however,  she 
actually  embarked  from  New  York  just  one  week 
earlier.  This  was  in  pursuance  of  a  certain  plan 
which  required  that  she  should  have  one  week  in 
London  quite  free  of  Horace  before  he  should 
come  to  claim  the  fulfilment  of  her  promise  to 
marry  him. 


CHAPTER  II 

BETTINA  was  in  London.  The  ocean  voy- 
age had  done  her  good,  and  the  necessary 
effect  of  change,  variety,  new  faces,  new 
feelings,  new  thoughts,  had  been  to  take  her  out 
of  herself — the  self  that  was  nothing  but  a  griev- 
ing and  bereaved  daughter — and  to  quicken  the 
pleasure-loving  instincts  and  thirst  for  admira- 
tion which  were  as  inherently,  though  not  as 
prominently,  a  part  of  her.  There  was  still  a 
root  of  bitterness  springing  up  within  her  when- 
ever she  thought  of  her  mother's  being  taken 
from  her,  and  this  very  element  it  was  which 
urged  her  to  make  all  she  could  of  life,  in  the 
hope  of  partially  filling  the  void  in  her  heart. 
She  was  not  even  yet  reconciled  to  the  loss  of 
her  mother,  and  there  was  a  certain  defiance  of 
destiny  in  her  resolution  to  get  some  compensa- 
tion for  the  wrong  she  had  sustained  in  losing 
what  was  dearest  to  her. 

On  arriving  in  London,  Bettina  went  to  a 
14 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

hotel,  and  from  there  made  inquiries  as  to  the 
whereabouts  of  Lord  Hurdly.  Parliament  was  in 
session,  and  his  lordship  was  in  his  town  house 
in  Grosvenor  Square.  Having  ascertained  the 
hour  at  which  he  was  most  likely  to  be  at  home, 
Bettina  betook  herself  at  that  hour  to  his  house. 
She  refused  to  give  her  name  to  the  servant 
who  answered  her  ring,  and  asked  merely  that 
Lord  Hurdly  might  be  told  that  a  lady  wished 
to  speak  to  him  on  a  matter  of  importance.  The 
servant,  after  a  moment's  hesitation,  ushered  her 
into  a  small  reception-room  on  the  first  floor,  and 
requested  her  to  wait  there. 

She  stood  for  a  few  moments  alone  in  this 
room,  her  heart  beating  fast.  She  wore  the 
American  style  of  deep  mourning,  which  swath- 
ed her  in  dense,  impenetrable  black  from  head  to 
feet,  and  seemed  to  add  to  her  somewhat  unusual 
tallness. 

The  door  opened.  Lord  Hurdly  entered.  She 
had  seen  photographs  of  him,  and  even  through 
that  thick  veil  would  have  known  him  anywhere. 
The  tall,  thin  figure,  sharp  eyes,  aquiline  nose, 
clean-shaven  face,  and  scrupulous  dress  were  all 
familiar  to  both  memory  and  imagination. 

He  paused  on  the  threshold  of  the  room,  as  if 
slightly  repelled  by  the  strange  appearance  of 
15 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

the  shrouded  figure  before  him.  Then  he  spoke, 
coldly  and  concisely. 

"You  wished  to  speak  to  me?"  he  said.  "I 
have  a  few  moments  only  at  my  disposal." 

Bettina  raised  one  hand  and  threw  back  her 
veil,  revealing  thus  not  only  her  face,  but  her 
whole  figure  clothed  in  smooth,  tight  -  fitting 
black,  so  plain  and  devoid  of  trimming  that  the 
exquisite  lines  were  shown  to  the  best  advantage. 
Her  face,  surrounded  by  black  draperies,  looked 
as  purely  tinted  as  a  flower,  and  the  excitement 
of  the  moment  had  made  her  eyes  brilliant  and 
flushed  her  cheeks. 

The  imperturbability  of  Lord  Hurdly's  face 
relaxed.  His  lips  parted  ;  a  smothered  sound, 
as  of  surprise,  escaped  him.  Certainly  at  that 
moment  Bettina  was  nothing  less  than  bewilder- 
ingly  beautiful. 

"  I  have  to  beg  your  pardon  for  coming  to  you 
so  unceremoniously,"  she  said.  "  My  excuse  is 
that  I  have  a  matter  of  great  importance  to  speak 
to  you  of." 

Her  voice  was  certainly  a  charming  one,  and  if 
her  accent  was  such  as  he  might  have  found  fault 
with  under  other  circumstances,  under  these  he 
found  it  an  added  attraction.  She  had  put  her 
own  construction  on  Lord  Hurdly's  evident  sur- 
16 


A    MANIFEST   DESTINY 

prise  at  sight  of  her,  and  it  was  one  which  gave 
her  an  increased  self-possession  and  added  to  her 
sense  of  power. 

"Let  us  go  into  another  room,"  said  Lord 
Hurdly.  "I  cannot  keep  you  here,  and  what- 
ever you  may  have  to  say  to  me  I  am  quite  at 
leisure  to  attend  to." 

He  led  the  way  from  the  room,  and  Bettina  fol- 
lowed in  silence.  She  had  had  innumerable  dreams 
of  grandeur,  poor  child !  but  she  had  been  too 
ignorant  even  to  imagine  such  a  place  as  this 
house.  Its  furnishing  and  decorations  repre- 
sented not  only  the  accumulated  wealth,  but  also 
the  accumulated  taste  and  opportunity,  of  many 
successive  generations.  She  felt  an  ineffable 
emotion  of  deep,  sensuous  enjoyment  in  her  pres- 
ent surroundings  which  made  her  heart  leap  at 
the  idea  that  all  these  things  might  some  day  be 
hers.  Lord  Hurdly  looked  exceedingly  well  pre- 
served, and  that  day  might  be  very  far  distant. 
All  the  more  reason,  therefore,  she  told  herself, 
why  she  should  make  peace  between  him  and 
Horace,  so  that  she  might  at  least  be  sometimes 
a  guest  in  this  house,  and  be  lifted  into  an  atmos- 
phere where  she  felt  for  the  first  time  that  she 
was  in  her  true  element.  It  was  not  only  the 
magnificence  which  she  saw  on  every  side  which 
B  17 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

so  appealed  to  her.  It  was  that  air  of  the  best  in 
everything  that  made  her  feel,  in  Lord  Hurdly's 
presence,  as  well  as  in  his  house,  that  civilization 
could  not  go  further — that  life,  on  its  material 
side,  had  nothing  more  to  offer.  And  Bettina 
had  now  reached  a  point  in  her  experience  where 
material  pleasure  seemed  to  be  all  that  was  left. 
She  quite  believed  that  all  of  the  joy  of  loving 
was  buried  in  the  grave  of  her  mother. 

Her  heart  was  beating  fast  as  she  entered  Lord 
Hurdly's  library  and  saw  him  close  the  door  be- 
hind them.  It  then  struck  her  as  being  a  little 
peculiar  that  he  should  have  brought  her  here 
without  even  knowing  who  she  was  or  what  she 
wanted  of  him. 

A  doubt,  a  scarcely  possible  suspicion,  came 
into  her  mind. 

"  Have  you  any  idea  who  I  am  ?"  she  said. 

"It  suffices  me  to  know  what  you  are." 

"Ah!  I  do  not  understand,"  she  said,  puzzled. 

"  You  have  come  upon  me  without  ceremony, 
madam,"  said  Lord  Hurdly,  with  a  slightly  old- 
fashioned  pomposity  in  his  polished  manner, 
"and  I  may  therefore  ask  you  to  excuse  an  ab- 
sence of  ceremony  in  me  in  alluding  to  the  im- 
pression which  you  have  made  upon  me.  Yon 
are  a  stranger  to  me — an  American,  I  judge  from 
18 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

yonr  speech.  I  hope  that  I  am  to  be  so  fortunate 
as  to  hear  that  there  is  something  which  I  can  do 
for  you." 

"There  is,"  Bettina  said — "a  thing  so  vital 
and  important  to  me  that,  now  I  am  in  your 
presence,  I  am  afraid  to  venture  to  speak,  for 
fear  you  may  refuse  to  hear  my  prayer/' 

"  You  are  in  small  danger  from  that  quarter, 
I  assure  you.  I  am  ready  to  do  for  you  what- 
ever you  may  ask.  Let  me,  however,  put  a  few 
questions  before  I  hear  your  request.  You  are 
wearing  mourning.  Is  it,  perhaps,  for  your  hus- 
band?" 

"For  my  mother,"  said  Bettina,  with  a  sud- 
den trembling  of  the  lip  and  suffusion  of  the 
eyes  which  gave  her  a  new  charm,  in  revealing 
the  fact  that  this  young  goddess  had  a  human 
heart  which  could  be  quickly  stirred  to  emo- 
tion. 

"Forgive  me,"  said  Lord  Hurdly,  with  great 
courtesy.  "  Forget  that  I  have  roughly  touched 
a  spot  so  sore,  and  tell  me  this,  if  you  will :  are 
you  married  or  unmarried  ?" 

"  I  am  unmarried,"  said  Bettina,  beginning  to 

tremble  as  she  found  the  important  moment 

upon  her;  "but  I  am  about  to  be  married.     I 

have  made  this  visit  to  London  beforehand  only 

19 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

to  see  you.  The  man  I  am  going  to  marry  is 
your  cousin  and  heir,  Horace  Spotswood." 

Lord  Hurdly's  guarded  face  betrayed  a  certain 
agitation,  but  the  signs  of  this  were  quickly  con- 
trolled. 

He  looked  straight  into  her  eyes  for  a  few  sec- 
onds without  speaking.  Then  he  crossed  the 
room  and  touched  an  electric  button,  saying,  as 
he  did  so  : 

"I  will  get  rid  of  an  engagement  that  I  had, 
so  that  I  may  be  quite  at  leisure  to  talk  with 
you." 

Neither  spoke  again  until  the  servant  had 
come,  taken  his  instructions,  and  gone  away, 
closing  the  door  behind  him.  There  was  a  cer- 
tain determination  in  Lord  Hurdly's  manner 
and  expression  which  did  not  escape  Bettina. 
She  was  sure  that  her  revelation  of  her  identity 
had  prompted  some  decisive  course  of  action  in 
his  mind,  but  what  it  was  she  could  not  guess 
from  that  inscrutable  face. 

' '  I  am  now  quite  free  for  the  morning/'  her 
companion  said.  "  Naturally  there  is  much  for 
us  to  say  to  each  other.  Will  you  not  lay  aside 
your  bonnet  and  wrap  ?  The  day  is  warm,  and 
that  heavy  mourning  must  distress  you." 

Certainly  his  manner  was  kind.  Bettina  be- 
20 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

gan  to  like  him  and  to  hope  for  success  in  her 
object  in  coming  here.  Quickly  unbuttoning  her 
black  gloves,  she  unsheathed  her  lovely  hands, 
which  were  bare  of  rings.  Then  with  a  few  deft 
motions  she  removed  her  outer  wrap  and  her 
bonnet  with  its  long,  thick  veil. 

In  so  doing  she  revealed  the  fact  that  she  had 
an  exquisite  head,  with  delicious  masses  of  brown 
hair  which  looked  almost  reddish  in  its  contrast 
to  the  dense  black  of  her  gown,  the  smooth  se- 
verity of  which  accentuated  every  lovely  curve 
of  her  figure,  as  it  would  have  done  every  defect, 
had  there  been  defect.  This  gown  was  fitted  to 
her  so  absolutely  that  one  had  the  satisfying  sense 
that  one  looked  at  the  woman  instead  of  at  her 
clothes.  There  were  fine  old  portraits  on  the 
wall,  of  noble  ladies  who  had  once  done  the  hon- 
ors of  this  great  establishment,  but  the  fairest 
of  them  paled  before  the  glowing  loveliness  of 
this  girl.  For  she  looked  a  girl,  despite  her 
sombre  garments,  and  there  was  a  certain  timid- 
ity in  her  manner  which  strengthened  this  im- 
pression. 

Lord  Hurdly  offered  her  a  seat,  and  then  took 
another,  facing  her. 

"  In  engaging  yourself  to  marry  Horace  Spots- 
wood,"  he  began,  deliberately,  "  you  have  made 
21 


the  supreme,  if  not  the  irreparable,  mistake  of 
your  life." 

Bettina's  white  skin  showed  the  sudden  ebb 
of  the  blood  in  her  veins  as  he  said  these  words. 

"  Why  ?"  she  asked,  concisely. 

"Because he  is  no  match  for  you,  and  because 
your  marrying  him  would  not  only  place  you  on 
a  lower  plane  than  where  you  belong,  but  it  would 
also  so  seriously  injure  his  position  in  life  that 
there  would  be  no  possible  chance  for  him  to  re- 
trieve it  until  my  death.  I  am  comparatively  a 
young  man,  and  likely  to  live  a  long  time.  Apart 
from  that,  I  may  marry.  I  had  no  expectation 
or  intention  of  doing  so,  but  his  recent  defiance 
of  me  has  made  me  sometimes  feel  inclined  to 
the  idea.  I  have  so  far  changed  in  my  feeling 
on  this  subject  that  if  I  could  meet  and  win  a 
woman  to  my  mind,  I  would  marry  at  once. 
What  then  would  become  of  Horace  ?  He  has  a 
mere  pittance  besides  his  pay,  which  is  a  ridic- 
ulous sum  for  a  man  to  marry  on.  He  has 
wronged  you  in  putting  you  in  such  a  position, 
and  you  have  equally  wronged  him." 

Bettina  had  turned  very  white  as  he  spoke. 
The  picture  he  drew  was  bad  enough  in  itself, 
but  to  have  it  sketched  before  her  in  her  present 
surroundings  made  it  infinitely  worse. 
22 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"  If  we  have  wronged  each  other,  we  have  done 
it  ignorantly,"  she  said.  "  He  assured  me  that 
you  were  determined  never  to  marry,  and  he 
counted  on  your  past  kindness  and  your  attach- 
ment to  him — " 

She  broke  off,  her  voice  shaken. 

"  On  the  same  ground  I  counted  on  him/'  said 
Lord  Hurdly.  "  He  was  in  no  position  to  mar- 
ry against  my  will,  and  in  engaging  to  do  so  he 
defied  me.  Let  him  take  the  consequences." 

"Then  you  are  determined  not  to  relent?" 
Bettina  faltered.  "  You  will  not  forgive  him  for 
the  offence  of  proposing  to  make  me  his  wife  ?" 

"  I  did  not  say  that,"  returned  Lord  Hurdly, 
with  a  subtle  change  of  tone.  "I  certainly 
should  not  forgive  him  for  marrying  you,  but 
for  proposing  to  do  so  I  am  ready  enough  to  for- 
give him,  provided  he  comes  to  his  senses  at  that 
point  and  goes  no  further.  In  that  event  I  am 
ready  not  only  to  continue  the  handsome  income 
that  I  have  allowed  him,  but  to  give  him  out- 
right the  principal  of  it." 

Bettina  had  never  pretended  that  she  was 
deeply  in  love  with  Horace  Spotswood.  Indeed, 
she  had  quite  decided  within  herself  that  she  was 
incapable  of  such  a  state  of  feeling,  and  it  was 
her  belief  that  the  fervor  and  intensity  of  love 
23 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

which  she  had  given  to  her  mother  had  taken  the 
place  of  what  some  women  give  to  their  hus- 
bands. Still,  she  looked  upon  her  prospective 
marriage  to  him  as  one  of  the  fixed  facts  of 
the  universe,  and  Lord  Hurdly's  words  bewil- 
dered her. 

Keener  than  this  surprise,  however,  was  her 
sense  of  humiliation  at  the  implacable  offence 
which  Lord  Hnrdly  had  taken  at  his  heir's  pro- 
posed marriage  with  herself.  That  he  had  wished 
Horace  to  marry  she  knew ;  it  was  therefore  the 
woman  whom  he  had  chosen  that  Lord  Hurdly 
resented. 

She  rose  to  her  feet,  feeling  herself  giddy,  and 
knowing  that  she  was  white  with  agitation.  Her 
one  idea  was  to  get  away — to  escape  the  scrutiny 
of  the  intense  gaze  which  was  fixed  upon  her. 

"  I  must  go.  I  beg  your  pardon  for  coming/' 
she  said,  with  a  proud  coldness,  reaching  for  her 
wrap. 

"  You  must  not  go.  I  owe  you  endless  thanks 
for  coming,  and  I  will  show  you  that  yon  have  to 
congratulate  yourself  also  on  this  interview.  If 
you  went  now,  you  would  defeat  all  the  good 
that  may  come  of  it.  Sit  down,  I  beg  of  you, 
and  hear  me  out." 

His  manner  was  not  only  urgent,  it  was  also 
24 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

kind,  and  nothing  could  have  been  more  respect- 
ful than  his  every  look  and  tone. 

Bettina  sat  down  again  and  waited. 

"What  is  it  that  has  shocked  you?"  he  said. 
"  Is  it  because  of  your  great  love  for  Horace — or 
is  it  his  for  you  which  you  are  thinking  of  most  ?" 

"I  do  not  see  that  I  am  bound  to  answer  you 
that  question/'  said  Bettina,  proudly.  "My 
reasons  are  sufficient  for  myself." 

"  You  are  in  no  way  bound,  my  dear  young 
lady,  but  you  would  be  wise  to  answer  me.  I 
have  every  disposition  to  act  as  your  friend  in 
this  matter,  and  you  would  be  making  a  mistake 
to  turn  away  from  me  without  hearing  what  I 
have  to  say.  If  you  are  imagining  that  the  young 
fellow  with  whom  you  have  an  engagement  of 
marriage  would  be  rendered  inconsolable  by  the 
loss  of  you,  when  it  would  be  made  up  to  him  by 
the  possession  of  a  fortune,  perhaps  you  overes- 
timate things." 

"  What  things  ?"  she  said,  still  cold  and  with- 
held in  her  manner,  her  pale  face  very  set. 

"The  unselfishness  of  man's  love  in  general, 
and  of  this  man's  in  particular,"  he  said  ;  "and, 
for  another  thing,  yourself.  It  seems  a  brutal 
thing  to  say,  but  if  you  believe  that  that  hot- 
headed, undisciplined  boy  is  capable  of  a  sus- 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

tained  affection  against  such  odds  of  fortune  as 
this  case  presents,  then  I  disagree  with  you,  and 
I  know  him  better  than  you  do." 

Bettina's  face  flushed. 

"He  does  love  me  —  he  does  !"  she  cried,  in 
some  agitation.  "  I  have  been  cold  and  careless 
toward  him,  and  have  told  him  that  my  heart 
was  buried  in  my  mother's  grave."  At  these 
words  her  voice  trembled.  "  He  knows  how 
hard  it  is  for  me  to  think  of  another  kind  of  love 
just  yet ;  but  he  has  been  kindness  itself,  and  has 
written  me  the  dearest,  lovingest  letters  that  ever 
a  woman  had.  If  they  have  been  a  little  rarer 
and  colder  lately,  it  is  only  because  of  my  own 
shortcomings  toward  him.  I  shall  try  to  atone 
for  them  now.  Since  I  realize  how  great  an  in- 
jury I  have  done  to  him,  I  shall  try  to  be  his 
compensation  for  it." 

"And  you  think  you  will  succeed  ?  I  doubt 
it." 

Something  in  his  manner  impressed  her  in  spite 
of  herself.  Perhaps  he  saw  that  it  was  so,  for  he 
pushed  his  advantage. 

"Compare  the  length  and  opportunities  of  my 
intercourse  with  him  and  yours,"  he  said.  "You 
would  be  acting  the  part  of  absolute  folly  not  to 
listen  to  me  now.  In  the  end  you  will  be  as  free 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

to  act  as  you  were  in  the  beginning.  Only  let 
me  remind  you  that  his  future  is  involved  as 
well  as  your  own." 

He  saw  that  this  argument  told. 

"  I  am  willing  to  listen,"  she  said. 

"I  am  grateful  to  you,"  he  answered,  with  that 
air  of  finished  politeness  which  makes  the  best 
graces  of  a  young  man  seem  crude,  and  which 
Bettina  was  not  too  ignorant  to  appreciate  at  its 
proper  value. 

"  I  have  known  Horace  as  child  and  boy  and 
man — if  he  may  yet  be  called  a  man,"  he  said, 
with  a  light  touch  of  scorn.  "  You  have  known 
him  in  one  capacity  and  state  only  —  that  of  a 
lover,  a  role  he  can  no  doubt  play  very  prettily, 
and  one  in  which,  despite  his  youth,  he  is  far 
from  being  unpractised.  He  has  been  in  love 
oftener  than  it  behooves  me  to  say  or  you  to 
hear — quite  harmless  affairs,  of  course,  but  they 
prove  to  one  who  has  watched  him  as  I  have  that 
his  nature  is  fickle  and  capricious.  I  confess  that 
when  I  heard  you  say,  just  now,  that  his  letters 
of  late  had  been  rarer  and  less  ardent,  I  could 
not  wholly  attribute  it  to  the  reason  which  so 
quickly  satisfied  you.  As  a  rule,  these  intensely 
ardent  feelings  are  not  of  long  duration,  and  I 
know  well  both  the  intensity  and  the  brevity  of 
27 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

Horace's  attacks  of  love.  It  was  for  this  very 
reason  that  I  so  resented  the  idea  of  his  marry- 
ing without  my  advice.  I  foresaw  that  he  would 
soon  weary  of  any  woman.  All  the  more  reason, 
therefore,  for  his  choosing  one  who  was  suited  to 
him,  apart  from  the  matter  of  his  loving  her.  I 
knew  he  had  not  the  staying  quality  —  that  he 
was  quite  incapable  of  a  sustained  affection.  I 
therefore  considered  his  taste  in  the  matter  less 
than  my  own.  As  he  was  my  heir  in  the  event 
of  my  not  marrying,  I  felt  that  I  had  the  right 
to  demand  that  he  should  marry  suitably  to  his 
position/' 

"I  regret  that  he  should  have  made  an 
engagement  which  has  disappointed  you,"  said 
Bettina,  a  slight  curl  at  the  corners  of  her 
lips. 

"I  regret  it  also;  but  you  may  remember  that 
at  the  beginning  of  this  interview  I  spoke  of 
this  mistake  on  your  part  and  on  his  as  great, 
though  not  perhaps  irreparable." 

He  was  looking  at  her  keenly,  and  he  saw  that 
his  words  had  no  effect  upon  her  except  to  mys- 
tify her. 

"I  do  not  see  any  way  to  its  reparation,"  she 
said,  and  was  about  to  continue,  when  he  inter- 
rupted her. 

28 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"  I  have  pointed  out  the  way — a  rupture  of  the 
engagement  by  mutual  consent." 

"A  consent  that  he  would  never  give,"  said 
Bettina,  with  a  certain  pride  of  confidence. 

"  And  you  ?"  he  asked. 

"Nor  I  either,"  she  said,  "unless  I  were  con- 
vinced that  he  wished  it." 

"  It  would  perhaps  be  not  impossible  to  con- 
vince you  of  that,  granted  a  little  time,"  said 
Lord  Hnrdly.  "  But,  apart  from  his  wish,  have 
you  no  consideration  for  his  interest  ?  His  posi- 
tion in  diplomacy  is  at  present  insignificant,  but 
he  has  talents  and  a  chance  to  rise,  unless  that 
chance  be  utterly  frustrated  by  his  embarrassing 
himself  with  a  family — a  condition  that  would 
be  death  to  his  career.  Ask  any  one  you  choose, 
and  they  will  tell  you  that  there  cannot  be  two 
opinions  about  this.  Besides,  through  my  help 
he  has  been  able  to  live  like  a  man  of  fortune. 
His  allowance,  however,  will  be  stopped  on  the 
day  of  his  marriage,  if  he  persists  in  such  a 
course.  If  he  abandons  it,  he  will  find  himself 
with  the  principal  as  well  as  the  interest  at  his 
disposal.  So  situated,  he  has  every  chance  to 
rise.  Under  the  other  conditions,  he  inevitably 
falls.  What  would  become  of  him  ultimately  is 
too  dreary  a  line  of  conjecture  to  dwell  upon." 
29 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

Bettina's  face  was  paler  still.  The  tears  sprang 
to  her  eyes — tears  of  mortification  and  keen  re- 
gret. The  thought  of  her  mother  pierced  through 
her,  and  the  consciousness  that  she  had  no  longer 
the  refuge  of  that  gentle  heart  to  cast  herself  upon 
almost  overcame  her.  Pride  lent  her  aid,  how- 
ever, and  she  rallied  quickly. 

"You  have  fully  demonstrated  to  me,"  she 
said,  "  that  I  have  injured  your  cousin  in  prom- 
ising to  marry  him.  I  did  it  in  ignorance,  how- 
ever. "With  the  facts  before  me  which  you  have 
just  given,  I  should  perhaps  have  acted  differ- 
ently. Regret  now,  however,  is  useless." 

"  On  the  contrary,  this  is  one  of  the  rare  cases 
in  which  regret  is  not  useless.  The  reparation 
of  your  mistake  is  in  your  own  hands." 

The  possibility  of  doing  what  he  urged  flashed 
through  Bettina's  mind.  Horace  would  certainly 
be  infinitely  better  off  without  her,  in  every  ra- 
tional and  material  sense ;  and  at  this  stage  of 
Bettina's  development  the  rational  and  material 
were  predominant.  But  what  of  her,  apart  from 
Horace  ?  This  thought  found  vent  in  words. 

"  You  have  been  looking  at  this  subject  from 

your  own  point  of  view,"  she  said,  "and  perhaps 

naturally.     I  must,  however,  think  of  an  aspect 

of  the  case  in  which  you  have  no  interest.     I  am 

30 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

absolutely  alone  in  the  world,  and  if,  for  your 
cousin's  sake,  I  made  this  sacrifice — " 

In  spite  of  herself  her  voice  faltered. 

Lord  Hurdly  drew  his  chair  a  little  nearer  to 
her.  His  eyes  were  fixed  upon  her  with  a  yet 
more  intent  gaze  as  he  said,  with  directness  and 
decision : 

"You  are  quite  mistaken.  It  is  this  aspect  of 
the  case  which  concerns  me  chiefly.  If,  as  is 
undoubtedly  true,  the  prevention  of  this  most 
mistaken  marriage  would  be  an  advantage  to 
Horace,  to  you  it  may  be  a  far  greater  gain,  and 
to  me  it  may  be  the  fulfilment  of  all  that  I  have 
ever  desired  in  life." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?"  she  said,  bewildered. 

"  I  mean  that  the  supreme  desire  of  my  heart 
is,  and  has  been  from  the  moment  my  eyes  rested 
on  you,  to  make  you  Lady  Hurdly  absolutely 
and  at  once,  instead  of  your  waiting  for  a  name 
and  position  which,  after  all,  may  never  come  to 
you/' 

Her  heart  beat  so  that  her  breathing  came  in 
smothered  gasps.  The  piercing  demand  of  his 
eyes  was  almost  terrifying  to  her.  She  saw  that 
he  was  absolutely  in  earnest,  and  the  commiser- 
ation which  she  felt  for  Horace  struggled  with 
the  dazzling  temptation  which  this  opportunity 
31 


offered  to  that  strong  ambition  which  was  so  great 
an  element  in  her  essential  nature. 

"  Do  not  be  shocked  or  startled  by  the  sudden- 
ness of  my  proposal,"  he  said.  "I  trust  that 
you  will  come  to  see  that  it  is  eminently  wise  and 
reasonable.  When  I  said  the  marriage  was  an 
unsuitable  one,  I  was  thinking  more  of  you  than 
of  Horace.  Your  beauty,  your  manner,  your 
voice,  your  words,  your  whole  ego  and  person- 
ality, show  you  to  have  been  born  for  a  great 
position.  It  is  a  case  of  manifest  destiny.  The 
fortune  and  the  social  rank  that  I  can  bestow  are 
all  too  little  for  you ;  I  should  like  to  be  able  to 
put  a  queen's  crown  on  your  beautiful  head. 
But  such  as  I  am — a  man  who  has  made  his  im- 
pression on  the  current  history  of  his  country, 
and  who,  though  no  longer  young  in  the  crude 
sense  that  counts  only  by  months  and  years,  is 
still  by  no  means  old — and  such  things  as  I  have 
and  can  command,  I  lay  at  your  feet,  begging  you 
humbly  to  impart  to  them  a  value  which  they 
have  never  had  before,  by  accepting  them  and 
becoming  the  sharer  of  my  name,  my  position, 
and  my  fortune,  and  the  mistress  of  my  heart/' 

He  had  risen  and  was  standing  in  front  of  her 
with  the  resolution  of  a  strong  purpose  in  his 
eyes.  But  she  could  not  meet  them,  those  dom- 
32 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

inating,  searching  eyes.  The  thoughts  that  his 
words  had  given  rise  to  were  too  agitating,  too 
uncertain,  too  tormenting  to  her.  The  thought 
of  giving  Horace  up  pained  her  more  than  she 
would  have  believed,  while  the  vision  of  the  gran- 
deur so  urged  upon  her,  which  not  ten  minutes 
gone  she  had  seen  dashed  like  a  full  beaker  from 
her  thirsty  lips,  tormented  her  as  well.  It  was 
to  her  a  vast  sacrifice  to  think  of  resigning  such 
possibilities,  yet  at  the  first  she  had  no  other 
thought  but  to  resign  them.  The  arguments  for 
Horace's  future  career  which  had  been  urged 
upon  her  also  played  their  part  in  her  conscious- 
ness now,  and  the  seething  confusion  of  images 
in  her  brain  made  her  senses  swim. 

Lord  Hurdly  must  have  seen  her  agitation,  for 
he  hastened  to  say : 

"I  have  been  too  hasty.  You  must  forgive 
me.  Do  not  try  to  answer  me  at  present.  I  see 
that  you  are  overwrought.  Let  me  beseech  you 
to  rest  a  little  while.  I  will  send  for  the  house- 
keeper." 

"  No,  no  !  I  must  go,"  she  answered,  starting 
to  her  feet.  But  she  had  overestimated  her 
strength.  She  sank  back  in  her  chair. 

He  went  himself  and  brought  her  a  glass  of 
wine,  talking  to  her  with  a  soothing  reassurance 
c  33 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

as  she  drank  it.  He  reproached  himself  for  hav- 
ing been  too  hurried,  too  rash,  but  pleaded  the 
earnestness  of  his  hopes  as  an  excuse.  "When  she 
had  taken  the  wine  she  wanted  to  go,  but  he  en- 
treated her  so  humbly  not  to  punish  him  too 
deeply  for  his  fault  that  when  he  begged  her  to 
let  him  call  the  housekeeper  to  sit  with  her  until 
luncheon,  which  he  implored  her  to  take  before 
leaving,  she  acquiesced,  too  fagged  out  mentally 
to  take  any  decided  position  of  her  own. 

To  the  housekeeper  Lord  Hurdly  explained  that 
this  lady  was  in  deep  trouble — a  fact  sufficiently 
attested  by  her  heavy  mourning  —  and  would 
like  to  rest  awhile  before  eating  some  luncheon. 
Bettina  saw  herself  regarded  with  a  respectful 
awe  which  she  had  never  had  a  taste  of  before. 
The  housekeeper,  with  the  sweetest  of  voices  and 
kindest  of  manners,  promised  to  do  all  in  her 
power,  and  Lord  Hurdly  withdrew. 

Bettina  could  not  talk.  She  lay  back  on  the 
lounge  and  submitted  to  be  gently  fanned  and 
having  salts  occasionally  held  to  her  nose.  But 
all  her  effort  was  to  compose  her  thoughts — a 
difficult  attempt,  as  the  image  of  her  mother  was 
the  one  which  insisted  on  taking  the  pre-emi- 
nence in  her  mind.  She  ordered  it  down,  with  a 
sort  of  bitterness.  Had  her  mother  been  alive, 
34 


"SHE   SANK   BACK   IN   HEK   CHAIK " 


A    MANIFEST   DESTINY 

she  would  have  gladly  fled  from  this  puzzle  into 
which  her  life  had  tangled  itself,  and  gone  back 
to  America  to  rest  and  mother-love.  So  she  told 
herself,  at  least.  But  then  followed  the  reflec- 
tion that  in  her  mother's  death  the  refuge  of 
love's  calm  and  protection  was  gone  from  her  for- 
ever, and  that  she  must  either  remain  in  Europe 
under  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  conditions 
offered  her,  or  else  resign  herself  to  the  apathy 
of  despair. 

It  was  not  in  her  to  do  this,  and  the  brilliant 
possibilities  which  Lord  Hurdly  had  suggested 
flashed  into  her  mind,  and  so  excited  her  that 
she  suddenly  rose  to  her  feet  and  announced  that 
her  slight  indisposition  was  past,  asking  the 
housekeeper  to  take  her  somewhere  to  rear- 
range her  hair  and  prepare  herself  for  luncheon. 

Even  had  Bettina  been  the  possessor  of  a  happy 
heart  which  rejoiced  in  a  fulfilled  and  contented 
love  for  the  man  she  had  promised  to  marry,  the 
other,  dominating  side  of  her  nature  could  not 
have  been  quite  stifled  as  she  walked  through  the 
halls  and  corridors  of  this  magnificent  mansion. 
These  were  things  her  imagination  had  always 
pictured  as  her  proper  position  in  life,  and  which 
the  unregenerate  heart  within  her  had  always 
craved.  But  how  far  beyond  her  ignorant  dreams 
35 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

was  the  grand  repose  of  this  beautiful  house  !  It 
•was  so  much  more  than  she  had  conceived  that 
the  new  supply  to  her  senses  seemed,  in  a  way, 
to  create  a  new  demand  in  them. 

Never,  perhaps,  had  she  so  appreciated  what 
it  must  be  to  be  a  grande  dame  as  to-day,  when 
she  was  on  the  point  of  refusing  such  an  oppor- 
tunity, though  it  was  just  within  her  grasp.  For 
she  had  no  idea  but  that  she  should  refuse  it, 
and  this  very  consciousness  made  her  more 
friendly  in  her  feelings  and  actions  toward  Lord 
Hurdly  than  she  would  otherwise  have  been. 

"When  she  had  adjusted  her  dress  and  smoothed 
her  hair,  before  large  mirrors  which  gave  her  a 
better  view  of  her  loveliness  than  she  had  ever 
had  before,  a  servant  summoned  her  to  luncheon, 
and  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  she  saw  Lord  Hurdly 
awaiting  her. 

So  seen,  a  decided  baldness,  which  she  had  not 
much  noticed  before,  became  evident,  but  there 
was  a  certain  distinction  in  the  man's  general  air 
which  this  rather  seemed  to  heighten.  His  man- 
ner of  delicate  solicitude  for  her  was  the  perfec- 
tion of  good-breeding,  and  when  she  answered 
him  reassuringly,  and  walked  by  his  side  to  the 
dining-room,  a  sudden  conviction  seized  her  that 
she  had  come  into  her  own — that  this  was  the 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

position  for  which  she  had  been  born,  and  that, 
independent  of  the  fact  that  she  had  determined 
to  decline  it,  it  was  her  fate,  which  she  could  not 
escape.  She  tried  to  coax  the  belief  that  it  was 
as  Horace's  wife  that  she  would  one  day  enjoy  all 
these  delights,  but  the  thought  eluded  her.  She 
could  not  see  Horace  in  the  seat  now  filled  by  his 
cousin.  In  imagination  as  well  as  in  reality  it 
was  Lord  Hurdly  who  occupied  that  seat. 

This  conviction,  which  every  moment  deepened, 
she  could  not  shake  off  and  could  not  account  for. 
She  had  a  feeling  that  it  was  forced  upon  her 
consciousness  through  some  dominating  power  of 
Lord  Hurdly's  spirit  over  her  own.  She  felt  as 
if  she  were  hypnotized.  She  wondered  if  it  could 
be  so,  and  if  she  would  presently  come  to  herself 
and  find  that  it  was  all  a  delusion  and  she  had 
never  seen  Lord  Hurdly  or  his  house,  but  was 
on  her  way  to  St.  Petersburg  to  join  Horace  and 
settle  down  to  a  limited  and  economical  way  of 
living. 

At  this  thought  her  heart  fell.  She  had  laid 
her  hand  upon  this  dazzling  prize  of  worldly 
wealth  and  position.  Could  she  let  it  go  ? 

During  luncheon  no  reference  was  made  to  the 
subject  of  their  late  conversation.  The  servants 
remained  in  the  room,  and  Lord  Hurdly  talked 
87 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

of  pnblic  and  quite  impersonal  affairs.  In  so  do- 
ing he  showed  a  trenchant  insight,  a  broad  knowl- 
edge of  the  world,  an  undeniably  powerful  men- 
tality, and  a  decided  skill  in  the  art  of  pleasing. 
If  the  tone  of  his  talk  was  cynical,  it  found,  for 
that  very  reason,  all  the  clearer  echo  in  Bettina's 
heart.  A  certain  tendency  to  cynicism  was  in- 
born in  her,  and  the  bitterness  she  felt  at  the  loss 
of  her  mother  had  accentuated  this.  What  was 
the  use  of  loving,  she  asked  herself,  when  love 
must  end  like  this  ?  In  her  heart  she  passionately 
hoped  that  she  might  never  love  again.  And  she 
had  also  a  shrinking  from  being  loved  in  any  ar- 
dent manner  that  might  make  demands  upon  her 
which  she  could  not  respond  to. 

When  the  time  came  for  Bettina  to  leave,  she 
found  that  the  cab  in  which  she  had  come  had 
been  sent  away,  and,  in  its  place,  Lord  Hurdly's 
brougham  waited  for  her.  He  escorted  her  him- 
self to  the  carriage  door,  and  when  the  great  foot- 
man who  held  it  open  touched  his  hat  in  silence 
as  he  took  her  orders,  and  then  mounted  beside 
his  twin  brother  on  the  box  and  she  was  bowled 
away,  on  padded  cushions  from  which  emanat- 
ed a  delicious  odor  of  fine  leather,  Bettina  felt 
that,  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  she  was  in  her 
proper  element. 

88 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

The  events  of  the  morning  seemed  to  her  like 
some  agitating  dream.  She  wondered  how  long 
it  had  been  since  she  left  her  hotel,  and  tried  to 
guess  what  time  it  was.  As  she  did  so,  her  eyes 
fell  on  the  small  clock,  neatly  encased  in  the  leath- 
er upholstering  of  the  carriage  just  in  front  of  her. 
The  fitness  of  this  object  and  of  everything  about 
her  gave  her  a  delicious  sense  of  adaptation  to 
her  environment  which  she  had  never  had  be- 
fore. 

When  she  got  out  at  her  hotel,  the  footman, 
with  the  same  salute  of  ineffable  respect,  said  that 
his  lordship  had  told  him  to  ask  if  she  had  any 
further  orders  for  the  carriage  to-day  or  to-mor- 
row. She  declined  the  offer,  but,  none  the  less, 
she  felt  flattered  by  the  attention. 

Lord  Hnrdly's  only  further  reference  to  their 
last  conversation  had  been  to  ask  her  to  pay  his 
words  the  respect  of  a  few  days'  consideration  at 
least.  He  had  learned  from  her  that  Horace  was 
unaware  of  her  being  in  England,  and  that  she 
had  a  whole  week  at  her  disposal  before  he  would 
expect  to  meet  her  there.  When  he  asked  for  a 
part  of  that  week,  in  which  to  give  him  the  oppor- 
tunity to  prove  to  her  that  her  duty  to  Horace, 
as  well  as  to  herself,  demanded  the  rupture  of 
this  mistaken  engagement,  she  was  sufficiently  in- 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

fluenced  by  the  subtlety  of  this  appeal  to  grant 
his  request. 

To  her  surprise,  several  days  went  by,  and  he 
did  not  come  to  see  her  nor  write.  Every  morn- 
ing the  carriage  was  sent  to  the  hotel  and  the 
footman  came  to  her  door  for  orders,  but  she  al- 
ways answered  that  she  did  not  require  it.  Every 
morning,  also,  came  a  lavish  offering  of  flowers, 
the  great  exotic  flowers  which  Bettina  loved — 
huge,  heavy-petalled  roses  and  green  translucent- 
looking  orchids.  But,  except  for  these,  he  did 
not  thrust  himself  upon  her  notice — a  fact  which 
during  the  first  and  second  days  she  gave  him  the 
greatest  credit  for,  but  by  the  third  had  grown 
to  feel  a  certain  resentment  at. 

In  the  mean  time  there  had  followed  her  from 
home  a  letter  from  Horace.  It  was  the  coldest 
she  had  ever  had  from  him,  and  set  her  to  think- 
ing deeply  as  to  the  possible  cause  of  his  coldness. 
Could  it  be,  she  asked  herself,  that  Lord  Hurdly 
was  right  in  calling  him  capricious  ?  Had  he — 
as  was  possible,  of  course — cooled  in  his  ardor  for 
her,  and  come  to  see  that  this  hasty  engagement 
of  his  had  been  a  great  mistake,  as  she  herself 
had  come  to  see  ? 

For  this  point,  at  least,  Bettina  had  positively 
reached.  Why,  therefore,  should  she  adhere  to 
40 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

her  engagement  in  the  face  of  the  knowledge  that 
such  an  adherence  would  be  to  his  disadvantage, 
no  less  than  to  hers  ? 

These  arguments  would  have  quite  prevailed 
with  her  but  for  one  thing.  This  was  the  convic- 
tion, not  yet  changed,  though  somewhat  shaken 
by  Lord  Hurdly^s  account  of  him,  that  Horace 
really  loved  her  and  would  suffer  in  losing 
her. 

Deprived  of  the  restraint  of  her  mother's  influ- 
ence, Bettina  had  progressed  with  rapidity  in  her 
way  toward  worldliness  and  selfish  ambition,  but 
she  had  a  heart.  Her  love  for  her  mother  had 
given  abundant  proof  of  that,  if  there  were  noth- 
jng  else  ;  and  now  her  heart  combated  the  influ- 
ence of  her  head,  which  decreed  that  only  a  fool 
would  reject  the  great  good  fortune  now  held  out 
to  her. 

In  point  of  fact,  Bettina  had  been  influenced 
more  by  ambition  than  by  love  in  engaging  her- 
self to  Horace,  and  the  gratification  of  a  far  more 
splendid  ambition  was  offered  to  her  in  making 
this  other  marriage.  In  it,  also,  love  would  play 
but  little  part,  and  this  she  felt  to  be  decidedly  a 
gain.  Yet  she  was  not  so  far  lost  to  the  senti- 
ments of  kindness  and  loyalty,  that  she  had  learned 
from  the  teaching  and  example  of  her  mother,  as 
41 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

not  to  hesitate  before  wounding  and  humiliating 
the  man  who,  as  she  still  believed,  loved  her  de- 
votedly. Could  it  have  been  proved  that  she 
was  mistaken  in  so  believing,  Lord  Hurdly's  case 
would  have  been  already  won. 


CHAPTER  III 

IN  the  end  Lord  Hurdly  prevailed,  and  that  end 
was  swifter  in  coming  than  Bettina  would  have 
believed  to  be  possible.  She  had  allowed 
herself  a  week  to  wait  in  London,  and  for  the 
first  day  or  two  of  that  week  she  lived  in  dread 
lest  Lord  Hurdly  should  come  to  her  and  renew 
the  arguments  which  she  was  quite  determined 
to  combat.  As  the  days  passed  and  he  did  not 
come,  she  began  to  fear  that  the  opportunity  of 
final  decision  on  the  momentous  question  of  her 
choice  between  these  two  men  would  not  again  be 
offered  her.  Her  better  nature  still  held  her  to 
her  pledge  to  Horace,  but  already  she  had  come 
to  feel  that,  but  for  his  disappointment  at  losing 
her,  she  would  have  accepted  Lord  Hurdly's  pro- 
posal, as  it  offered  a  full  and  immediate  fulfil- 
ment of  her  dreams  of  ambition,  and  the  other 
postponed  these  indefinitely,  while  it  promised 
comparatively  little  in  any  other  direction. 
Toward  the  end  of  the  week  Lord  Hurdly  called, 
43 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

and,  without  any  reference  to  his  own  hopes  and 
intentions,  spoke,  with  what  seemed  to  be  a  con- 
siderable hesitation  and  regret,  of  his  young  cous- 
in's character  and  mode  of  life,  which  he  declared 
were  known,  to  every  one  except  Bettina,  to  be 
exceedingly  capricious  —  even  light.  He  dwelt 
upon  the  fact,  well  known  to  Bettina,  of  his  ear- 
nest desire  that  his  cousin  and  heir  should  marry, 
and  gave  as  a  reason  for  this  desire,  what  he  de- 
clared to  be  the  accepted  fact,  that  Horace  was 
inclined  to  a  dissipated  manner  of  living,  which 
he  hoped  marriage  might  correct. 

Poor  Bettina  !  She  had  believed  the  young 
man,  to  whom  she  had  pledged  herself,  to  be  the 
very  opposite  of  all  this.  Yet  how  absolutely  ig- 
norant concerning  him  she  really  was  !  And  the 
rector  of  her  church,  who  was  supposed  to  vouch 
for  him,  knew  in  reality  as  little  as  she.  How 
easily  she  might  have  been  mistaken  in  him  !  And 
yet,  and  yet,  there  was  a  still,  small  voice  in  her 
heart  which  confirmed  her  in  her  resolve  to  believe 
in  him  until  she  had  proof  that  such  a  belief  was 
ill  founded. 

"With  his  past  I  have  nothing  to  do,"  she  said 
to  Lord  Hurdly,  with  a  certain  show  of  pride. 
"  If  it  has  been  lower  than  my  ideal  of  him,  I  re- 
gret it ;  but  I  am  entirely  sure  that  since  he  has 
44 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

known  me  and  had  my  promise  to  be  his  wife  he 
has  been  true  to  all  that  that  promise  required  of 
him." 

"  This  being  your  conclusion/'  Lord  Hurdly 
answered,  "  you  force  upon  me  the  necessity  of 
showing  you  a  letter  which  I  have  to-day  received 
from  a  friend  in  St.  Petersburg,  and  which  I 
would,  without  strong  reason  to  the  contrary, 
have  gladly  spared  you  the  pain  of  reading." 
With  these  words,  he  handed  Bettina  a  letter. 

It  was  signed  with  a  name  unknown  to  her, 
but  written  evidently  in  the  tone  and  manner  of 
an  intimate  friend.  The  first  page  or  two  re- 
ferred to  matters  wholly  indifferent  to  her — 
public  affairs  and  the  like — but  toward  the  end 
were  these  words : 

"  Are  you  as  set  as  ever  in  your  determination 
not  to  marry  ?  Pity  it  is  that  such  a  noble 
name  and  fortune  as  yours  should  not  pass  on 
to  a  son  of  your  own,  instead  of  to  one  who,  it 
is  to  be  feared,  will  do  little  to  honor  it.  I  see  him 
here,  at  court  and  everywhere,  accurately  fulfill- 
ing the  rather  unflattering  predictions  which 
I  long  ago  made  concerning  him.  There  is  a 
story  that  he  became  engaged  to  be  married  dur- 
ing his  travels  in  America,  and  I  hear  that  he 
owns  up  to  it  and  speaks  of  being  joined  by  his 
45 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

fiancee  and  married  on  this  side.  I  hope  it  may 
not  be  so.  Certainly  his  present  manner  of  liv- 
ing argues  against  the  rumor,  unless — a  supposi- 
tion I  am  reluctant  to  believe — he  proposes  to1 
keep  up,  as  a  married  man,  the  habits  which  are 
so  readily  forgiven  to  a  bachelor,  though  not  to 
a  husband. " 

There  was  more,  but  Bettina  read  no  further. 
This  was  enough.  She  had  turned  away  to  a 
window,  that  she  might  read  this  letter  unob- 
served by  Lord  Hurdly,  who  had  considerately 
walked  to  the  other  end  of  the  room. 

"When  at  last  she  approached  him  and  gave 
him  back  the  letter,  she  was  very  pale,  but  her 
manner  was  wholly  without  indecision  and  her 
voice  was  resolute  as  she  said  : 

"I  thank  you,  Lord  Hnrdly,  for  the  service 
which  you  have  rendered  me.  This  letter  has 
made  my  future  course  quite  clear.  I  shall  write 
to  your  cousin  to-day  that  everything  is  at  an 
end  between  us.  And  now  will  you  be  good 
enough  to  leave  me  ?  I  wish  to  make  my  ar- 
rangements to  return  to  America  at  once." 

Even  as  she  said  the  -words,  the  bitter  barren- 
ness of  this  prospect — the  old  dull  life,  without 
the  dear  presence  which  had  been  its  one  and  suf- 
ficient palliation — rose  before  her  mind  and  ap- 
46 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

palled  her.  Perhaps  Lord  Hurdly  saw  in  her 
face  some  change  of  expression  which  he  con- 
strued as  favorable  to  himself,  for  he  hastened 
to  say  : 

"  "Will  you  not,  before  taking  so  rash  a  step, 
consider  the  proposal  which  I  have  made  to  you? 
I  can  offer  you  the  substance  of  which  the  other 
was  only  the  shadow,  and  I  can  pledge  to  you  the 
stable  and  unalterable  devotion  of  a  man  who  has 
lived  long  enough  to  know  his  own  mind,  and 
who  declares  to  you  that  you  are  the  only  woman 
whom  he  has  ever  desired  to  put  in  the  position 
of  his  wife." 

It  was  impossible  not  to  feel  some  conscious- 
ness of  satisfaction  at  a  tribute  which  her  own 
knowledge  of  facts  convinced  her  to  be  sincere, 
but  Bettina's  heart  and  mind  were  still  too  pre- 
occupied to  meet  him  in  the  way  he  wished.  She 
repeated  her  request  that  he  would  leave  her, 
and  so  earnest  and  distressed  was  her  manner 
that  he  complied,  leaving  behind  him  an  impres- 
sion of  the  deepest  solicitude  for  her,  and  the 
most  earnest  desire  on  his  part  to  atone  for  the 
wrong  which  his  kinsman  had  done  her. 

Bettina  threw  herself  upon  the  lounge  and 
abandoned  herself  to  a  fit  of  weeping — so  over- 
whelming, so  despairing,  so  heart-breaking  that 
47 


she  could  scarcely  believe  that  she,  who  had 
thought  that  all  her  power  of  deep  suffering 
had  been  exhausted,  could  still  find  it  in  her  to 
care  so  much  for  any  other  grief. 

The  worst  of  it  was  that,  now  it  was  quite  evi- 
dent that  she  was  forever  divided  from  Horace, 
the  charm  of  his  manner  and  appearance,  the 
tenderness  of  his  love-making,  came  back  to  her 
with  a  power  which  they  had  never  exercised 
upon  her  in  reality.  Never,  surely,  had  a  man 
existed  who  was,  to  appearance  at  least,  more 
frank,  sincere,  ardent,  and  deeply  in  love  than 
he  had  seemed  to  be  with  her.  It  made  his  per- 
fidy appear  the  greater.  Nothing  but  the  sight 
of  that  letter  could  have  made  her  believe  it ;  but 
that,  taken  in  connection  with  the  rareness  and 
coolness  of  his  recent  letters  to  her,  made  it  all 
too  plain  that  the  ardent  flame  of  his  love  had 
burned  out,  and  that  he  had  repented  his  im- 
petuosity, now  that  he  had  had  time  to  think  of 
the  sacrifice  which  it  entailed. 

This  was  indeed  great  for  a  man  in  his  posi- 
tion, ambitious  in  his  career,  and  with  his  foot 
already  on  the  ladder  that  led  to  success.  She 
even  began  to  doubt  whether  he  would  have  ful- 
filled his  obligations  to  her  when  it  came  to  the 
point. 

48 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

She  got  out  his  letters  and  read  them  over. 
How  passionately  loving  were  the  early  ones — how 
cool  and  constrained  the  more  recent !  The  con- 
trast struck  her  far  more  now  in  the  light  of  re- 
cent events.  It  really  seemed  as  if  he  might  be 
trying  to  get  out  of  the  engagement. 

At  this  thought  pride  came  to  her  rescue.  She 
felt  herself  grow  hard  and  cold,  and  her  compos- 
ure returned  completely.  She  would  never  let 
him  know  what  she  had  heard,  for  that  might 
make  it  seem  as  if  she  gave  him  up  from  com- 
pulsion. She  sat  down  and  wrote  quickly  a  few 
formal  sentences,  saying  that  she  had  mistaken 
her  own  feelings,  and  that  she  wished  to  break 
the  engagement.  She  added  that  she  was  re- 
turning immediately  to  America,  as  indeed  she 
was  intending  to  do  at  the  time  of  the  writing 
of  this  letter. 

After  it  had  gone,  and  was  on  its  way  to  St. 
Petersburg,  a  mental  condition  of  such  abject 
misery  settled  down  upon  her  that  the  thought 
of  the  endless  days  and  nights  of  idle  monotony 
which  would  be  her  lot  if  she  returned  home, 
and  the  awful  void  of  her  mother's  absence,  be- 
came intolerable.  She  could  not  do  it.  She 
must  find  some  way  of  escape  from  such  a  fate. 

Jnst  as  she  was  casting  about  for  such  a  way, 
D  49 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

Lord  Hurdly  came  to  see  her.  The  escape  which 
he  offered  had  in  it  many  elements  of  the  strong- 
est attractiveness  for  her.  Since  she  could  not 
be  happy,  as  she  believed,  why  might  she  not 
get  from  life  the  satisfaction  which  comes  from 
the  holding  of  a  great  position,  the  opportunity 
of  being  admired  and  wielding  a  powerful  in- 
fluence ?  It  was  a  prospect  which  had  always 
charmed  her ;  and  now,  with  no  alternative  but 
lonely  isolation  and  bitter  weariness,  was  it 
strange  that  she  decided  to  accept  Lord  Hurd- 
ly's  offer? 

And  if  it  was  to  be,  what  need  was  there  to 
wait  ?  Wounded  in  her  pride  as  she  was  by  the 
revelation  of  Horace  which  she  had  received,  she 
relished  the  idea  of  becoming  at  once  what  he 
had  proposed  to  make  her — and  afterward  re- 
pented of.  She  was  fully  convinced  in  her  mind 
that  he  had  repented,  and  her  blood  beat  faster 
as  she  thought  of  his  consternation  on  hearing 
of  this  marriage.  She  felt  eager  that  he  should 
hear  of  it  at  once. 

And  so  indeed  he  did.  On  the  heels  of  his  re- 
ceipt of  Bettina's  letter  her  marriage  to  Lord 
Hurdly  was  announced  by  cable — not  to  him, 
but  through  the  newspapers. 

Then  into  his  heart  there  entered  also  the  ex- 
50 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

ceeding  bitterness  of  a  lost  ideal.  She  became 
to  him,  as  he  had  become  to  her,  the  image  of 
broken  faith,  capricious  feeling,  and  overween- 
ing worldly  ambition. 

Yet  in  the  heart  of  the  man,  who  had  loved 
completely  and  supremely,  as  Bettina  never  had, 
there  was  a  feeling  which  made  him  say  to  him- 
self, with  a  conviction  which  he  knew  to  be  im- 
mutable, that  marriage  was  not  for  him.  The 
present  Lord  Hurdly  had  said  the  same,  and  had 
changed  his  mind.  For  himself  he  knew  that  he 
should  not,  for  all  of  love  that  he  was  capable 
of  feeling  had  been  given  to  the  woman  who  had 
cast  him  off. 


CHAPTER  IV 

BETTINA  had  gone  through  her  first  Lon- 
don season  as  Lady  Hurdly,  and  certain- 
ly no  girl's  ambitious  dreams  could  have 
forecast  a  more  brilliant  experience.  She  had 
been  far  too  ignorant  to  imagine  such  subtle  de- 
lights of  the  senses  as  resulted  from  the  wealth 
and  eminence  which  she  had  attained  to  in  marry- 
ing Lord  Hnrdly.  And  beyond  the  mere  sensu- 
ous appeal  which  was  made  to  her  by  the  wear- 
ing of  magnificent  clothes  and  jewels,  and  the 
being  always  surrounded  with  objects  of  beauty 
and  means  of  luxury,  she  had  the  greater  delight 
of  having  her  feverishly  active  mind  continually 
supplied  with  a  stimulus,  which  it  now  more 
than  ever  needed.  This  was  furnished  by  the 
innumerable  social  demands  made  upon  her,  and 
the  complete  power  which  she  felt  within  herself 
to  respond  to  them  not  only  creditably,  but  in  a 
way  that  should  make  even  Lord  Hurdly  wonder 
at  her. 

52 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

True,  she  had  had  no  social  training,  and  in  a 
less  powerful  position  she  might  have  shown  her 
ignorance  and  incapacity,  for  she  would  then 
have  had  to  take  a  personal  supervision  of  the 
things  which  she  now  left  utterly  alone,  and 
which,  being  essential  to  be  done,  were  done — 
how  and  by  whom  she  did  not  ask.  Lord  Hurdly 
had  so  long  done  the  honors  of  his  house  without 
a  wife  that  it  was  natural  to  him  to  continue  the 
direction  of  household  affairs,  with  the  aid  of 
the  accomplished  assistants  who  were  in  his  em- 
ployment ;  so  Bettina  had  no  more  to  do  with 
such  matters  than  if  she  had  become  the  mistress 
of  a  royal  household.  At  the  proper  time  she 
showed  herself  at  Lord  Hurdly's  side,  and  she 
had  beauty  enough  and  wit  enough  not  only  to 
do  credit  to  that  high  position,  but  to  cast  a 
glory  over  it  which  he  knew  in  his  heart  no 
other  Lady  Hurdly  of  them  all  had  ever  done. 

That  she  enjoyed  it,  who  could  doubt  that 
saw  her,  day  after  day  and  evening  after  evening, 
beautifying  with  her  presence  the  social  gather- 
ings at  her  own  splendid  house,  and  at  those  of 
the  new  acquaintances  who  sought  her  society  and 
distinguished  her  with  their  attentions  wherever 
she  might  go. 

Having  had  no  experience  of  wealth,  it  never 
53 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

seemed  to  occur  to  her  that  it  could  have  its  defi- 
nite limit,  and  she  ordered  costumes  and  invented 
ways  of  spending  money  which  sometimes  sur- 
prised her  lord,  but  which  also  pleased  him.  His 
fortune  was  so  large,  and  had  been  so  long  with- 
out such  demands  upon  it,  that  it  was  a  source 
of  genuine  satisfaction  to  him  to  see  that  Bettina 
knew  how  to  avail  herself  of  her  brilliant  oppor- 
tunity. Save  and  except  a  wife,  he  was  already 
possessed  of  every  adjunct  that  could  do  credit  to 
his  name  and  position,  and  in  marrying  Bettina  he 
had  been  largely  influenced  by  the  fact  that  she 
was  qualified  to  supply  this  one  deficiency  with  a 
distinction  which  no  other  woman  he  had  ever 
seen  could  have  bestowed  upon  the  position. 

So,  to  the  world,  Bettina  seemed  completely 
satisfied,  and  in  the  worldly  sense  she  was  so.  In 
this  sense,  also,  Lord  Hurdly  seemed  and  was 
satisfied  in  his  marriage.  How  it  was  with  them 
in  their  hearts  no  one  knew,  and  perhaps  there 
was  no  one  who  cared  to  know.  The  one  being 
to  whom  this  question  was  of  strong  interest  was 
very  far  away.  He  had  shifted  his  position  from 
Russia  to  India  about  the  time  of  his  cousin's 
marriage,  and  Bettina  never  heard  his  name 
mentioned,  nor  did  she  ever  utter  it. 

After  the  London  season  was  over,  Lord  and 
54 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

Lady  Hurdly  had  moved  from  their  town-house 
to  the  family  seat,  Kingdon  Hall.  Here,  after  a 
day's  stop,  Lord  Hnrdly  had  left  her,  to  return 
to  town  on  some  public  business  ;  and  so,  for  the 
first  time  since  her  marriage,  she  had  a  few  days 
to  herself.  Later  they  were  to  have  the  house 
filled  with  guests,  and  after  that  to  make  some 
visits  ;  so  this  time  of  solitude  was  not  likely  to 
be  repeated  soon.  Bettina  was  surprised  at  her- 
self to  see  how  eagerly  she  clutched  at  it.  It 
was,  in  some  faint  degree,  like  the  feeling  which 
she  had  had  after  the  rare  and  short  separations 
from  her  mother — a  longing  to  get  back  to  the 
familiar  and  the  accustomed.  She  now  felt 
somewhat  the  same  longing  to  get  back  to  her- 
self. She  had  done  her  part  in  all  that  brilliant 
pageant  like  a  woman  in  a  dream.  She  had  en- 
joyed it,  for  power  and  admiration  were  very 
dear  to  her,  and  she  had  revelled  in  their  fresh 
first-fruits.  But  she  had  not  been  herself  for  so 
long,  had  not  for  so  long  looked  herself  in  the 
face  and  searched  her  own  heart,  that  she  did 
not  know  herself  much  more  familiarly  than  she 
knew  the  other  brilliant  personages  who  moved 
beside  her  across  the  crowded  stage  of  London 
life. 

It  was  unaccountable  even  to  herself  how  she 
55 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

rejoiced  at  the  idea  of  these  few  days  of  quiet 
and  solitude.  Nora,  her  old  nurse,  was  of  course 
with  her  still,  with  a  French  maid  to  assist  her 
and  perform  the  important  functions  of  the  toi- 
let of  which  the  elderly  woman  was  ignorant. 
This  maid  Bettina  sent  off  on  a  holiday,  so  that 
she  might  have  only  Nora  about  her. 

The  morning  after  her  arrival  at  Kingdon, 
Bettina,  having  breakfasted  in  her  room,  went  for 
a  ramble  over  the  house.  It  seemed  solemnly 
vast  and  empty,  and  she  would  have  lost  herself 
many  times  had  she  not  encountered  now  and 
then  a  courtesying  house-maid  or  an  obsequious 
footman,  who  answered  her  inquiries  and  told 
her  into  what  apartments  she  had  strayed. 

"Show  me  the  way  to  the  picture-gallery," 
she  said  to  one  of  these,  "  and  then  tell  the  house- 
keeper to  come  to  me  there  presently." 

She  had  taken  a  fancy  to  this  white-haired  old 
woman  the  night  before,  when  Lord  Hurdly  had 
presented  the  servants  to  their  new  mistress  in 
the  great  hall,  where  they  had  all  been  assembled 
to  receive  her  on  her  arrival. 

In  a  few  moments  she  found  herself  alone  in 

the  stately  gallery,  going  from  picture  to  picture. 

On  one  side  was  a  long  line  of  the  ladies  of 

Kingdon  Hall,  painted  by  contemporary  artists, 

56 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

each  celebrated  in  his  era.  At  the  end  of  this 
line  her  own  portrait,  done  by  a  celebrated 
French  painter  who  had  come  to  London  for  the 
purpose,  had  recently  been  put  in  place. 

It  was  a  magnificent  thing  in  its  manner  as 
well  as  in  its  subject,  and  the  costume  which 
Lord  Hurdly's  taste  had  conceived  for  her  and  a 
French  milliner  had  carried  out  was  a  marvel  of 
rich  effects.  As  she  paused  in  front  of  it  her 
lips  parted,  and  she  said,  whispering  to  herself, 

"  Lady  Hurdly — the  present  Lady  Hurdly  ! 
And  what  has  become  of  Bettina  ?" 

As  she  asked  herself  this  question  she  sighed. 

A  sudden  instinct  made  her  move  away.  She 
wanted  to  escape  from  Lady  Hurdly.  She  had 
a  chance  to  be  herself  to-day,  and  she  felt  a  strong 
desire  to  make  the  most  of  it. 

Hearing  a  sound  at  her  side,  she  turned  and 
found  the  serious,  pleasant  face  of  the  house- 
keeper near  her. 

"  Good-morning,  my  lady,"  she  said,  gently, 
in  answer  to  Bettina's  friendly  salutation.  "  Will 
your  ladyship  not  have  a  shawl  ?  This  room  is 
always  cool,  no  matter  what  the  weather  is." 

Bettina  declined  the  wrap,  but  passed  on  to 
the  next  picture,  requesting  the  woman  to  come 
with  her  and  act  as  cicerone. 
57 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"What  is  your  name?  I  ought  to  know  it," 
she  said. 

"Parlett,  your  ladyship/* 

"And  how  long  have  you  lived  here,  Parlett?" 

"  Over  forty  years,  my  lady.  I  was  here  in 
the  old  lord's  time.  That  is  his  picture,  with 
his  lady  next  to  him." 

Bettina  looked  with  interest  at  the  two  pict- 
ures designated. 

"  He  is  thought  to  be  very  much  like  his  pres- 
ent lordship,"  said  the  housekeeper. 

"Yes,  I  see  it,"  said  Bettina,  feeling  an  in- 
stinct to  guard  her  countenance.  Here  were  the 
same  keen  eyes,  the  same  resolute  jaw,  the  same 
thin  lips  and  hard  lines  about  the  month.  Only 
in  the  older  face  they  were  yet  more  accentuated, 
and  instead  of  the  not  unbecoming  thinness  of 
hair  which  showed  in  the  son,  there  was  a  frank 
expanse  of  bald  head  which  made  his  features  all 
the  harder. 

Hurrying  away  from  the  contemplation  of  this 
portrait,  Bettina  turned  to  its  companion.  Here 
she  encountered  a  face  and  form  which  were 
truly  all  womanly,  if  by  womanliness  is  meant 
abject  submission  and  self-effacement.  The  poor 
little  lady  looked  patiently  hopeless,  and  her 
deprecating  air  seemed  the  last  in  the  world  cal- 
58 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

cnlated  to  hold  its  own  against  such  a  lord. 
That  she  had  not  done  so — of  her  own  full  sur- 
render of  herself,  in  mind  and  soul  and  body — 
the  picture  seemed  a  plain  representation. 

"Poor  woman  !  She  looks  as  if  she  had  suf- 
fered," said  Bettina. 

"  Oh  yes,  my  lady/*  Parlett  answered,  as  if 
divided  between  the  inclination  to  talk  and  the 
duty  to  be  silent. 

"  She  was  unhappy,  then  ?"  said  Bettina. 
"  You  need  not  hesitate  to  answer.  His  lord- 
ship has  told  me  what  a  trusted  servant  of  the 
family  you  are,  and  I  shall  treat  you  as  such. 
You  need  not  fear  to  speak  to  me  quite  freely." 

"  Yes,  my  lady,  she  had  a  great  deal  of  sadness 
in  her  life,"  went  on  the  housekeeper,  thus  en- 
couraged. "She  had  six  daughters  before  she 
had  a  son,  and  this  was  naturally  a  disappoint- 
ment to  his  lordship.  One  after  the  other  these 
children  died,  which  grieved  her  ladyship  sorely, 
for  she  was  a  very  devoted  mother.  His  lordship 
had  never  noticed  them  much,  being  angry  at 
not  having  an  heir,  and  this  made  my  lady  all 
the  fonder  of  them.  She  had  little  constitution 
herself,  and  the  children  were  sickly.  At  last, 
however,  an  heir  was  born,  but  her  ladyship  died 
at  his  birth.  It  seemed  a  pity,  my  lady,  did  it 
59 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

not  ?  For  his  lordship  was  greatly  pleased  with 
the  heir,  and,  of  course,  my  lady  would  have  been 
much  happier  after  that." 

Bettina  did  not  answer.  The  evident  reason- 
ableness of  the  father's  position,  in  the  eyes  of 
this  good  and  gentle  woman,  made  it  impossible 
for  her  to  speak  without  dissent  to  such  an  atroc- 
ity as  Lord  Hurdly's  attitude  seemed  to  her.  So 
she  moved  away,  and  the  woman  took  the  hint 
and  said  no  more. 

A  little  distance  off,  at  the  end  of  the  long 
room,  she  had  caught  sight  of  an  object  that 
made  her  heart  beat  suddenly.  She  did  no  more 
than  glance  at  it,  and  then  returned  to  the  con- 
templation of  the  picture  before  which  she  was 
standing.  But  she  had  recognized  Horace  Spots- 
wood  in  the  tall  stripling  of  perhaps  fifteen  who 
stood  in  riding-clothes  at  the  side  of  a  pawing 
gray  horse. 

By  the  time  she  had  made  her  way  to  it,  in  its 
regular  succession,  she  had  quite  recovered  her 
calmness  and  had  made  up  her  mind  as  to  her 
course. 

"  And  who  is  this  handsome  boy  ?"  she  said, 
with  perfect  self-possession,  as  they  stood  before 
the  large  canvas. 

"  That  is  Mr.  Horace,  my  lady/'  said  the  wom- 
60 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

an,  a  sudden  tone  of  emotion  mingling  with 
the  deference  in  her  voice  as  her  eyes  dwelt  on 
the  picture  fondly. 

And  who  could  wonder  at  this  ?  Surely  a 
more  winsome  lad  had  never  been  seen.  He  was 
even  then  tall,  and  in  his  riding  coat  and  breeches 
looked  strangely  slender,  in  contrast  to  the  broad- 
shouldered  physique  which  she  had  lately  known 
so  well.  But  the  eyes  were  just  the  same — di- 
rect, frank,  eager  eyes,  which  looked  straight  at 
you  and  seemed  to  make  a  demand  upon  you  to 
be  as  open  and  frank  in  return. 

Had  Bettina  searched  the  world,  she  could 
not,  as  she  knew,  have  found  a  more  significant 
contrast  than  the  comparison  of  the  honest  eyes 
with  the  guarded,  cold,  inscrutable  ones  into 
which  it  was  now  her  lot  to  look  so  often. 

"  Have  you  known  him  a  long  time  ?"  she 
asked,  pleasantly,  as  the  woman  remained  silent. 

"  Oh,  since  he  was  a  little  lad,  my  lady  !  We 
all  love  Mr.  Horace  here.  He  is  the  handsom- 
est and  kindest  young  gentleman  in  the  world, 
and  he's  that  good  to  me  that  I  couldn't  be 
fonder  of  my  own  son,  not  forgetting  the  differ- 
ence, my  lady." 

Bettina  detected  a  tone  of  regretfulness  in  the 
woman's  voice,  and  also,  she  thought,  an  effort 
61 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

to  conceal  it.  If  there  was  a  feeling  akin  to  this 
regret  in  her  own  heart,  she  also  must  conceal 
it.  These  allusions  to  the  handsome,  enthusias- 
tic young  fellow  to  whom  she  had  promised  her- 
self in  marriage  had  stirred  her  deeply.  The 
idea  of  any  one,  servant  or  equal,  speaking  in 
this  way  of  the  man  who  was  her  husband,  at 
any  time  in  his  life,  gave  her  a  nervous  desire  to 
laugh.  It  was  followed  by  an  equally  nervous 
impulse  to  cry. 

Walking  ahead  of  the  housekeeper,  she  gained 
a  moment's  opportunity  for  the  recovery  of  her 
self-control,  and  she  made  good  use  of  it. 

"Parlett,"  she  said,  presently,  "I  do  not  want 
you  to  think  that  in  marrying  Lord  Hurdly  I 
have  done  an  injury  to  Mr.  Spotswood."  In 
spite  of  herself,  her  voice  shook  at  the  name. 

"Oh  no,  my  lady — "  began  Parlett,  but  her 
mistress  interrupted  her,  saying,  quickly  : 

"  Of  course  he  always  knew  that  his  lordship 
might  marry,  and  could  not  have  been  unpre- 
pared for  such  a  possibility ;  but  in  order  that 
he  might  feel  no  difference  in  his  present  posi- 
tion on  that  account,  Lord  Hurdly  has  settled 
on  him  what  is  really  a  handsome  fortune — not 
only  the  income  of  it,  but  the  principal  also.  I 
tell  you  this  that  you  may  understand  that  he 
63 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

is  none  the  worse  off,  so  far  as  money  goes, 
through  his  cousin's  marriage  to  me." 

"Yes,  my  lady.  I  understand,  my  lady. 
Thank  you  for  telling  me,"  said  Parlett,  some- 
what nervously.  "  Of  course  every  one  knows 
that  you  have  done  him  no  harm,  my  lady,  and 
we  knew,  of  course,  that  his  lordship  would  do 
the  handsome  thing  by  him." 

Somehow  these  civil,  reassuring  words  smote 
painfully  upon  Bettina's  consciousness.  "When 
this  woman  spoke  so  confidently  of  Lord  Hurd- 
ly's  doing  the  handsome  thing  by  his  former 
heir,  she  felt  it  to  be  the  hollow  tribute  of  a  con- 
ventional loyalty,  and  the  assurance  that  it  was 
understood  that  she  herself  had  done  him  no 
harm  grated  on  her  also.  Now  that  she  was 
quite  alone  and  free  to  think  things  out,  as  she 
had  shrunk  from  doing  heretofore,  and  as,  in  the 
rush  of  the  London  season,  she  had  been  able 
to  avoid  doing,  she  felt  a  sense  of  compunction 
toward  Horace  that  seriously  depressed  her. 

Dismissing  the  housekeeper,  she  put  on  a 
shade-hat  and  went  for  a  ramble  in  the  park. 
How  beautiful  it  was  !  What  shrubs,  what  trees, 
what  undulations  of  rich  emerald  turf !  She 
could  not  in  the  least  feel  that  she  had  any  right 
in  it  all.  But  how  must  a  creature  love  it  who 
63 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

had  looked  upon  its  noble  beauties  from  child- 
hood up  to  youth,  and  on  to  manhood,  with  the 
belief  that  it  would  some  day  be  his  own  !  She 
could  not  stifle  the  feeling  that  she  had  wronged 
that  being  if  by  her  marriage  she  should  be  the 
means  of  depriving  him  of  such  a  fortune  and 
position,  and  deep,  deep  down  in  her  conscious- 
ness she  had  a  boding  fear  that,  if  all  things  hid- 
den could  be  revealed,  it  might  be  shown  that  in 
a  keener  sense  than  this  she  had  also  wronged 
him. 

For  marriage  had  been  in  many  ways  an  illumi- 
nation to  Bettina.  The  revelation  of  her  own 
heart  which  it  had  given  her  was  one  which  she 
tried  hard  to  shut  her  eyes  to.  Twice  she  had 
consented  to  the  idea  of  marrying  without  love. 
Once  she  had  actually  done  this  thing.  Only 
her  own  heart  knew  what  had  been  the  conse- 
quences to  her.  But  of  one  thing  she  had  often 
felt  glad.  This  was  that  she  had  not  entered 
into  a  loveless  marriage  with  a  man  who  had 
loved  her  as  she  had  believed  Horace  did  at  the 
time  he  had  so  ardently  wooed  her.  From  such 
a  wrong  as  that  might  she  be  delivered  ! 

As  her  thoughts  now  dwelt  on  Horace  and  the 
circumstances  of  their  brief  past  together,  the 
memory  of  his  honest,  tender,  self-forgetful  atti- 
64 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

tude  toward  her  recurred  to  her  half  wistfully, 
in  contrast  to  her  recent  experiences.  Lord 
Hurdly's  manner  toward  her  had,  in  truth, 
changed  from  the  very  hour  of  their  marriage. 
He  no  longer  had  the  air  of  a  solicitous  suitor, 
but  took  at  once  that  of  the  assured  husband  and 
master.  It  made  her  think  what  she  had  heard 
of  his  father  and  of  his  poor  little  mother's  his- 
tory. Not  that  she  could  fancy  herself  becoming, 
under  any  circumstances,  a  Griselda ;  though 
she  could  without  difficulty  imagine  him  in  his 
father's  role. 

But  what  right  had  she,  she  asked  herself,  to 
expect  to  reap  where  she  had  not  sown  ?  She 
had  married  for  money  and  position,  and  she  had 
got  them.  What  more  had  she  expected  ? 

Nothing  more,  perhaps ;  but  in  one  point  she 
had  been  disappointed — namely,  in  the  power  of 
these  things  to  give  her  what  she  longed  for,  and 
what  she  could  define  only  under  the  indefinite 
term  happiness. 


CHAPTER  V 

BEf  TINA'S  talk  with  Parlett  had  set  her 
mind  to  working  very  actively  in  a  direc- 
tion in  which  she  had  not  allowed  it  to 
stray  before.      The  thought  of  Horace  always 
brought  a  sense  of  pain  and  spiritual  discomfort 
to  her,  which  she  instinctively  desired  to  shake 
off ;    and  in  the  restless  whirl  of  London  life, 
which  left  her  little  time  for  thought  of  any  kind, 
she  had  not  much  difficulty  in  doing  so. 

Now,  however,  she  had  nothing  to  do  but  to 
think  and  to  become  acquainted  with  her  new 
possessions,  the  latter  occupation  being  a  strong 
stimulus  to  the  former.  There  were  many  asso- 
ciations with  Horace  at  Kingdon  Hall.  It  was 
extraordinary  how  many  things  that  he  had  told 
her  in  connection  with  this  place  came  back  to 
her.  She  was  constantly  recognizing  pictures  or 
persons  or  names  with  which  he  had  made  her 
familiar.  The  persons  were,  of  course,  the  ser- 
vants, steward,  tenants,  and  the  like,  for  she  had 
66 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

seen  no  others.  Even  in  walking  abont  the  lawn 
she  had  found  his  initials  cut  on  trees,  and  the 
very  clogs  which  joined  her  when  she  would  go 
out  for  her  walks  had  names  on  their  collars  that 
she  knew.  There  was  one,  a  magnificent  Great 
Dane,  which  bore  Horace's  name  there  as  well  as 
his  own.  This  dog,  Comrade,  she  had  heard 
Horace  speak  of  with  a  special  affection. 

True,  Kingdon  Hall  had  never  been  Horace's 
home,  but  he  had  grown  up  with  the  idea  that  it 
might  be,  and  since  coming  to  manhood  had  felt 
wellnigh  secure  that  it  would  be.  All  his  life  he 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  making  visits  here,  and 
the  impression  which  he  had  left  behind  him 
was  almost  surprising  to  Bettina. 

The  place  in  which  this  impression  was  strong- 
est was  in  the  hearts  of  the  servants.  Bettina, 
through  Nora,  had  assured  herself  of  this.  The 
devoted  servant,  who  had  the  sole  object  in  life 
of  serving  her  beloved  mistress,  had,  by  Bettina's 
orders,  informed  herself  on  this  point,  and  all 
that  she  gathered  in  the  servants'  hall  she  re- 
tailed to  Bettina  in  her  room.  Nora,  like  every 
one  else,  had  been  won  by  Horace's  manner  and 
appearance,  but,  of  course,  when  her  mistress  had 
drawn  off  from  him,  she  had  no  idea  of  anything 
but  acceptance  of  the  changed  conditions.  Still, 
67 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

she  was  inwardly  delighted  when  Bettina  ex- 
plained to  her  how  anxious  she  was  to  learn  all 
that  she  could  about  Mr.  Horace,  so  that  she 
might  lose  no  opportunity  of  furthering  his  in- 
terest with  Lord  Hurdly,  and  making  up  to  him, 
as  far  as  possible,  for  having  disappointed  him  in 
his  worldly  prospects  by  marrying  his  cousin. 

That  he  could  hold  her  accountable  for  any 
other  wrong  to  him  she  did  not  admit.  At  times 
the  memory  of  his  fresh  and  buoyant  youth,  in 
so  great  contrast  to  the  jaded  maturity  of  his 
cousin,  knocked  at  the  door  of  her  heart,  and 
the  ardent  expressions  of  his  worshipping,  pas- 
sionate love  for  her  echoed  there  with  a  distinct- 
ness that  amazed  her. 

Surely  he  had  loved  her — this  she  could  not 
doubt.  But  if  his  love  had  been  so  slight  that  a 
few  months  of  absence  had  cooled  it,  and  of  so 
poor  a  quality  that  a  new  caprice  had  taken  its 
place  so  soon,  she  was  well  rid  of  it.  That  this 
had  been  so  the  letter  which  Lord  Hurdly  had 
shown  her  sufficiently  attested,  and  she  must 
guard  herself  against  the  folly  of  sentimental 
regrets. 

It  was  not  Horace  that  she  regretted.  It  was 
only  the  ideal  of  the  love  between  man  and  wom- 
an which  her  brief  intercourse  with  him  had 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

held  up  to  her.  She  had  seen  love  in  a  different 
guise  since  then — or  what  went  by  the  name  of 
love — and  surely  the  contrast  must  have  had  a 
deeper  root  than  the  mere  difference  between 
youth  and  middle-age. 

It  was  not  often  that  Bettina  allowed  herself 
to  think  of  these  things.  But  now,  in  her  soli- 
tude and  idleness,  visions  would  come  of  the 
eager  lover,  strong  as  a  young  Narcissus,  who 
represented  love  in  such  a  simple,  wholesome 
guise — or  at  least  so  it  had  seemed  to  be.  Then 
she  would  shake  off  the  image,  and  tell  herself 
it  was  but  seeming,  as  the  result  had  proved, 
and  so  she  would  accuse  herself  of  weakness  and 
sentimentality.  These  thoughts  were  getting  to 
be  inconvenient.  They  haunted  her  too  persist- 
ently, and  at  last  she  began  to  wish  for  the  time 
to  come  when  her  days  would  again  be  too  crowd- 
ed with  engagements  for  her  to  indulge  in  such 
foolish  reflections. 

The  truth  was,  deep  down  in  Bettina's  heart 
there  was  a  fear  which  she  could  not  wholly  still 
in  any  waking  hour.  She  could  and  did  refuse 
to  recognize  it,  even  in  her  own  soul ;  but  there 
it  was,  and  there  it  remained,  to  rise  again  and 
again,  and  almost  stifle  her  with  the  sinister  pos- 
sibility which  it  suggested. 
69 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

This  fear  was  based  upon  the  clearer  knowledge 
of  Lord  Hurdly's  character  which  had  come  to 
her  since  marriage.  She  had  found  in  him  an 
inexorable  resolution  to  have  what  he  wanted  in 
life,  which  had  rendered  him,  more  than  once 
within  her  knowledge,  unscrupulous  as  to  the 
means  he  used  in  the  securing  of  his  ends. 
This  it  was  which  had  planted  in  her  mind  the 
awful  though  remote  possibility  of  his  having 
been,  in  some  manner,  insincere  in  his  repre- 
sentations of  Horace's  nature  and  character. 

But  then  there  was  the  letter  from  his  friend 
which  she  had  seen  with  her  own  eyes,  with  tho 
St.  Petersburg  mark,  so  familiar  to  her,  on  the 
envelope,  and  which  had  been  written  by  a  per- 
son who  could  not  have  known  that  she  would 
ever  see  it.  Surely  that  was  enough  to  settle  all 
doubts  as  to  the  character  and  conduct  of  the 
man  to  whom  she  had  first  pledged  herself  in 
marriage,  and  she  had  at  least  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  her  present  husband  could  be 
charged  with  no  such  faults.  His  indifference 
to  her  sex  was  proverbial  in  society,  and  that 
she  alone,  of  all  the  women  he  had  seen — so 
many  of  whom  had  angled  for  him  openly — had 
been  able  to  do  away  with  his  aversion  to  mar^ 
riage  was  a  tribute  in  which  she  could  not  help 
70 


A    MANIFEST   DESTINY 

feeling  a  certain  pride,  the  more  so  as  she  saw 
every  day  new  proofs  of  his  fastidiousness,  as 
well  as  his  importance. 

So  she  stifled  this  dread  suggestion  and  forced 
her  thoughts  into  other  channels.  This  was  to 
be  more  easily  accomplished  when  her  body  was 
actively  employed ;  so  she  took  long  rides  on 
horseback,  attended  by  a  groom,  or  long  walks 
in  the  park  alone.  In  these  walks  Horace's  big 
dog  Comrade  would  often  join  her.  The  creature 
had  taken  a  fancy  to  her,  which  seemed,  in  some 
strange  way,  to  comfort  her. 

Besides  these  diversions,  she  had  her  large 
correspondence  to  dispose  of  every  day ;  for  in 
her  important  position  she  had  of  course  estab- 
lished numberless  points  of  contact  with  the 
world. 

So  the  time  went  by  until  Lord  Hurdly's  re- 
turn, and  the  day  that  followed  saw  Kingdon 
Hall  filled  with  guests.  After  that  there  were 
few  moments  of  reflection  for  its  mistress,  as  the 
duty  of  doing  the  honors  of  this  great  establish- 
ment demanded  all  her  time. 


CHAPTER  VI 

BETTINA  loved  this  power  and  importance. 
The  drama  of  her  present  life  was  like 
the  unfolding,  before  her  gaze,  of  a  beau- 
tiful series  of  pictures  which  she  had  conceived 
in  her  imagination,  and  which  some  enchanter's 
word  had  turned  into  reality.  The  crowded 
functions  of  the  London  season  had  somewhat 
palled  upon  her,  though  she  had  not  quite  owned 
it  to  herself ;  but  here  she  was  the  centre  of  the 
system,  the  light  around  which  these  lesser  lights 
revolved,  and  she  seemed,  under  these  conditions, 
to  shine  with  an  increased  radiance.  Her  man- 
ners, where  they  differed  from  those  of  the  wom- 
en about  her,  seemed  to  gain  rather  than  lose 
by  the  contrast,  and  her  costumes  seemed  to  be 
endless  in  their  variety  as  well  as  in  their  beauty. 
Certainly  she  had  an  air  of  being  born  to  the 
purple,  and  her  husband's  pride  in  her  was  un- 
doubted, if  unexpressed. 
Bettina  was  aware  that  this  pride  was  his 
72 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

strongest  feeling  in  regard  to  her,  and  she  was 
abundantly  willing  to  have  it  so.  If  she  had 
found  it  difficult  to  fall  in  love  with  a  youth 
who  might  have  disturbed  the  heart  of  Diana, 
she  was  not  likely  to  have  fallen  in  love  with 
the  cool,  cynical,  narrow-chested,  thin -haired 
man  whom  she  could  yet  feel  a  certain  pride  in 
owning  as  her  husband,since  his  appearance,  no 
less  than  his  name,  was  distinguished.  She  had 
always  had  a  theory  that  she  would  never  love 
deeply  any  one  besides  her  mother,  and  her  two 
experiences  in  the  lottery  of  marriage,  so  differ* 
ent  as  they  were,  convinced  her  that  her  knowl- 
edge of  herself  had  been  correct.  She  was  glad 
of  it.  The  hot  anguish  which  at  times  even  yet 
contracted  her  heart  at  the  thought  of  her 
mother  made  her  hope  devoutly  that  she  would 
never  love  again.  The  joy  of  it  could  not  be 
worth  the  pain. 

When  Lady  Hurdly's  house-party  broke  up,  she 
went  with  her  husband  on  a  round  of  visits  to 
other  country-houses.  This  phase  of  society  she 
liked,  and  she  threw  herself  into  it  with  ardor. 
But  toward  the  end  she  wearied  of  these  visits, 
as  she  had  wearied  of  London,  and  was  glad  to 
get  back  to  Kingdon  Hall.  Instead  of  rest,  how- 
ever, she  found  restlessness,  and  the  disturbing 
73 


thoughts  which  she  had  smothered  before  came 
back  with  added  force.  It  was  a  relief  to  her  to 
think  of  going  abroad  —  Lord  Hurdly  having 
made  plans  for  their  spending  some  months  of 
the  winter  on  the  Continent. 

There  was  one  instinctive  fear  connected  with 
this  plan — the  possibility  that  she  might  by  some 
chance  encounter  Horace.  She  had  little  fear 
that  he  would  come  to  England.  What  would 
it  matter  if  she  should  meet  him  ?  He  had 
never  been  anything  to  her,  really — so  she  as- 
sured herself — and  she  had  certainly  been,  in 
reality,  quite  as  little  to  him.  Yet  she  did  un- 
reasonably dread  such  a  meeting  with  him,  and 
felt  anxious  to  know  where  he  was. 

Accordingly,  one  morning  she  asked  Parlett, 
in  a  casual  way,  if  she  ever  heard  from  Mr. 
Horace. 

"  Oh  yes,  my  lady ;  he  writes  to  me  now  and 
then/'  replied  the  housekeeper.  Bettina  had 
not  expected  to  hear  this ;  her  only  thought  was 
to  draw  out  some  information  gained  by  hearsay. 

"  He  is  at  St.  Petersburg  ?"  she  asked,  indif- 
ferently. 

"  No,  my  lady ;  at  Simla,"  was  the  unexpected 
answer.  "He  has  been  there  a  good  while.  I 
had  a  pamphlet  from  him  the  other  day.  "When 
74 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

he  has  not  time  to  answer  my  letters,  he  often 
sends  me  a  paper,  or  something  like  that,  to 
show  me  what  he  has  been  doing.  I  can't  al- 
ways understand  them,  hut  he  knows  I  like  to 
have  them  just  because  he  wrote  them." 

Bettina  was  unwilling  to  show  her  ignorance, 
so  she  did  not  say  that  she  had  no  knowledge 
that  he  ever  wrote  for  publication,  and  when 
Parlett  went  on  to  offer  her  the  reading  of  the 
pamphlet  she  said,  with  an  indifferent  kindness, 

"  Yes,  bring  it  to  me,  by  all  means.  I  am  very 
glad  that  Mr.  Horace  keeps  up  his  intercourse 
with  the  old  place,  which  of  course  may  yet  be 
his.  I  shall  take  an  interest  in  seeing  what  he 
writes." 

She  went  on  to  speak  of  certain  changes  which 
she  wished  made  in  some  of  the  sleeping-apart- 
ments, and  then  dismissed  her  housekeeper  with 
something  less  than  her  usual  graciousness  of 
manner. 

Bettina  felt  a  strong  desire  to  be  alone.  These 
tidings  of  Horace,  slight  as  they  were,  had  been 
disturbing  to  her.  Indeed,  as  time  went  on  and 
her  knowledge  of  Lord  Hurdly  increased,  the 
fear  that  he  might  have  dealt  insincerely  with 
his  cousin  or  with  herself  grew  steadily.  She 
saw  proofs  every  day  of  the  ruthlessness  with 
75 


which  he  sacrificed  men,  and  even  what  should 
have  been  principles,  to  gain  his  ends.  By  the 
light  of  the  same  knowledge  she  realized  how 
his  meeting  with  her  had  disturbed  him  in  his 
cnstomary  calmness  of  poise,  and  she  argued 
from  this  fact  how  important  it  had  been  to 
him  to  gain  his  object  of  making  her  his  wife. 

In  the  midst  of  these  reflections  a  house-maid 
tapped  at  her  door,  with  some  folded  papers  on 
a  tray. 

"  If  you  please,  my  lady,  Mrs.  Parlett  sends 
you  these,"  she  said. 

She  was  a  sweet-faced,  rosy-cheeked  English 
girl,  with  a  soft  voice  and  very  pretty  manner, 
and  at  present  she  was  gently  agitated  by  the 
privilege  of  speaking  to  her  lady,  whom  she,  as 
well  as  all  the  rest  of  the  maids,  regarded  as  a 
sort  of  cross  between  angel  and  goddess. 

Bettina  thanked  her  with  a  kind  smile  which 
sent  her  away  completely  happy  ;  then,  in  the 
privacy  of  her  own  chamber,  she  opened  the 
papers.  One  was  a  diplomatic  pamphlet  on  a 
public  question  in  the  line  of  the  writer's  profes- 
sional work.  The  other  was  an  article  which 
went  very  thoroughly  into  the  question  of  the 
best  means  of  relieving  the  famine  then  raging 
in  India. 

76 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

It  seemed  to  Bettina  that  she  had  vaguely 
heard  that  there  was  such  a  famine,  but  she  had 
not  felt  more  than  a  kindly  casual  interest  in 
it  as  an  unfortunate  matter  which  she  could  not 
help.  Now,  however,  as  she  read  the  account 
which  this  paper  gave,  and  the  lines  which  it  fol- 
lowed in  the  effort  to  render  help,  her  heart 
burned  within  her.  Here  was  a  man  who  had  no 
more  power  than  herself  to  give  money  help — far 
less,  indeed,  perhaps.  Yet  how  he  was  spending 
his  soul,  his  strength,  his  time,  his  talent,  his  very 
heart-beats,  on  this  effort  to  go  to  the  rescue  of 
these  perishing  thousands!  No  one  who  read  the 
throbbing  sentences  of  that  paper  could  have  a 
doubt  of  the  writer's  earnest  desire  to  help,  or 
of  his  ability  to  move  the  hearts  and  wills  of 
others  to  come  to  his  aid.  It  wrought  upon  her 
strangely. 

How  much  money  could  she  lay  her  hands  on  ? 
She  had  no  idea,  but  she  would  make  it  her  busi- 
ness to  find  out.  There  was  her  own  little  in- 
come, which  she  had  taken  no  account  of  since 
her  marriage,  and  there  was  the  money  which 
Lord  Hurdly  had  put  to  her  credit  in  the  bank. 
She  would  get  all  she  could  and  send  it — anony- 
mously, of  course — to  the  famine  fund  which  she 
had  casually  heard  mentioned.  But,  oh,  what  a 
77 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

pitiful  offering  it  seemed  compared  with  what 
this  man  was  giving  with  such  lavish  self-devo- 
tion !  From  the  fervor  of  his  printed  words, 
and  his  report  of  what  had  so  far  been  accom- 
plished, she  saw  that  the  very  passion  of  his 
heart  was  in  it.  Of  his  ardent  temperament,  his 
quick  sympathies,  she  had  knowledge  in  her 
own  experience.  Perhaps  it  had  been  these  very 
traits  of  his  which  had  led  him  to  the  conduct 
which  had  separated  them. 

At  this  thought,  that  faint  suspicion  that 
he  had  been  misrepresented  to  her  rose  in  her 
heart  again;  but  she  choked  it  back.  That 
would  be  too  awful.  Besides  the  hideous  self- 
accusations  which  would  have  followed  the  ad- 
mission of  this  doubt,  there  was  another  argu- 
ment against  it  which  still  had  its  powerful  hold 
on  her.  She  had  grown  accustomed  to  her  great 
position  in  the  social  world,  and  her  inborn  in- 
stinct for  power  and  admiration  was  deliciously 
gratified  by  the  brilliancy  of  her  present  circum- 
stances. She  found  it  very  agreeable  to  be  Lady 
Hurdly,  with  all  that  that  name  and  title  implied, 
and  she  did  not,  even  in  this  moment  of  such 
unwonted  emotion,  lose  sight  of  that  fact. 

Yet  the  reading  of  this  little  paper  had  stirred 
a  feeling  in  Bettina's  heart  which  she  had  not 
78 


felt  for  so  long  a  time — a  yearning  tenderness 
for  some  object  outside  herself :  a  longing  that 
her  health  and  strength  might  avail  for  others 
bereft  of  these  blessings.  It  was  akin  to  the 
emotion  she  had  felt  by  her  mother's  dying  bed, 
and  as  it  swept  over  her  she  wept  as  she  had  not 
done  since  she  had  knelt  beside  that  sacred  spot. 

Instinctively  now  she  fell  upon  her  knees.  She 
tried  to  pray — but  for  what  ?  She  could  not  com- 
pose a  form  of  prayer  or  articulate  a  definite 
wish.  All  she  could  do  was  to  pray  to  God — 
the  God  in  whom  her  mother  had  trusted — to 
give  her  this  thing,  this  unknown  boon  which 
He  knew  her  passionate  need  of. 

When  she  rose  from  her  knees  she  put  her 
hands  to  her  head,  and,  pressing  her  temples 
hard,  looked  about  her,  as  if  in  search  of  some 
object  which  might  help  her  to  the  comprehen- 
sion of  her  own  mood.  Then,  running  her  fin- 
gers inside  the  collar  of  her  dress,  she  drew  out, 
by  a  slight  chain,  a  small  locket,  which  contained 
her  mother's  picture  and  a  lock  of  her  white 
hair.  It  was  a  sort  of  talisman  whose  mere 
touch  gave  her  a  sense  of  comfort.  She  did  not 
open  it  now,  but  held  it  between  her  palms  and 
pressed  her  cheek  against  it,  standing  there 
alone,  and  presently  she  whispered  : 
79 


"  What  is  it,  mother  darling  ?  What  is  it 
that  you  seem  trying  to  say  to  me  ?  Oh,  if  you 
can  ever  speak  to  me,  speak  now,  and  I  will  lis- 
ten as  I  did  not  do  when  you  were  here  beside 
me !  There  is  something  that  I  ought  to  do, 
and  I  am  not  doing  it.  There  is  something  I  am 
doing  which  distresses  you.  That  is  the  feeling 
that  I  have.  Oh,  my  mother — my  lovely,  pre- 
cious, good,  good  mother — if  I  had  you  here,  you 
would  tell  me  what  it  is  that  I  ought  to  do — and 
I  would  do  it  I" 

She  ceased  her  half-inarticulate  whispers,  and 
stood  intensely  still — almost,  it  seemed,  as  if  she 
waited  for  an  answer  to  them. 

But  there  came  no  answer  save  the  still,  small 
voice  within  her  soul,  which  had  so  often  tried 
to  speak  before,  and  which  even  yet  she  could 
not,  would  not  listen  to. 

This  voice  suggested  to  her  with  persistent 
iteration  that  she  should  even  now  look  strictly 
into  the  evidence  which  had  so  quickly  sufficed 
to  convince  her  that  the  young  and  ardent  lover 
who  had  wooed  her  so  passionately,  and  prom- 
ised her  such  loyalty  and  faith  and  devotion,  had 
been  false  to  his  professions  and  his  promises 
alike. 

Suppose  she  should  investigate ;  suppose  she 
80 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

should  get  proof  that  she  as  well  as  he  had  been 
falsely  dealt  with,  that  he  had  been  true  in  every 
word  and  thought — what  then  ?  Could  she  en- 
dure to  keep,  after  that,  the  position  of  wife  to 
the  man  who  had  so  deceived  and  injured  two 
beings  who  had  believed  him  ?  Assuredly  she 
'could  not.  What,  then,  would  be  her  alternative  ? 
To  leave  him  and  go  back  to  the  poor  life  at 
home,  which  her  mother's  presence  had  justified 
and  glorified,  but  which  without  that  presence, 
and  with  the  contrast  of  her  present  position  in 
her  mind,  would  be  too  intolerable  a  thought  to 
contemplate. 

No,  she  had  no  sufficient  reason  to  doubt  the 
representations  that  her  husband  had  made  to 
her.  She  would  try  to  accept  them  more  implic- 
itly for  the  future,  and  so  fight  against  such  dis- 
turbing ideas.  There  were  ample  means  of  di- 
version within  her  reach.  Her  sojourn  abroad 
would  soon  begin,  and  she  must  fight  against 
any  recurrence  of  her  present  mood  of  weakness. 

If  she  was  to  win  this  fight,  however,  there 
was  one  precaution  which  she  felt  that  she  must 
take.  This  was  to  avoid  the  very  name  of  Hor- 
ace Spotswood,  and,  as  far  as  might  be  possible, 
every  thought  of  him  as  well. 

Her  foreign  travels  began,  and  she  then  had 
P  81 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

the  assurance  that  this  effort  would  not  be  diffi- 
cult of  accomplishment.  There  were  a  thousand 
new  issues  for  Bettiua's  interest  and  feelings  in 
her  constantly  changing  surroundings,  and  these 
were  sufficiently  absorbing  to  do  away  with  lately 
disturbing  considerations.  The  world  had  still 
its  powerful  charm  for  Bettina,  and  she  was  now 
seeing  the  world  in  a  very  fascinating  aspect. 


CHAPTER  VH 

ABettina  had  found  the  London  season  de- 
lightful, and  yet  had  been  quite  content 
to  see  it  close,  and  as  the  same  had  been 
true  of  her  experience,  both  as  hostess  and  as 
guest,  at  the  country-house  parties  which  had 
followed  the  season,  so  it  was  also  with  her  for- 
eign travels,  although  she  found  much  to  inter- 
est and  delight  her  in  the  various  cities  which  she 
visited  with  Lord  Hurdly.  He  was  received 
with  distinction  everywhere — a  fact  partly  due  to 
his  prominent  position  in  Parliament,  and  partly 
to  his  social  importance  and  the  acknowledged 
beauty  of  his  wife. 

Bettina  enjoyed  it,  certainly,  and  found  it  very 
helpful  to  her  in  carrying  out  her  resolve  to 
banish  the  agitating  thoughts  which  would  recur 
whenever  she  thought  of  Horace.  She  had  man- 
aged to  stop  thinking  of  him  almost  entirely, 
and  to  live  only  for  the  satisfaction  of  each  day 
as  it  passed. 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

After  a  while,  however,  she  began  to  feel  that 
there  was  a  certain  flatness  in  the  sort  of  pleasure 
which  consisted  so  largely  in  being  an  object  of 
admiration,  for  she  had  not  been  able  herself  to 
feel  much  enthusiasm  for  the  people  whom  she 
met.  She  did  not  make  friends  easily,  perhaps 
because  she  did  not  greatly  care  to  have  friends. 
Her  mother's  delicate  health  had  left  her  little 
time  for  other  companionships,  even  if  she  had 
desired  them,  and  since  the  loss  of  her  mother 
her  heart  had  seemed  to  close  up,  and  her  capaci- 
ty for  caring  for  people,  never  very  great,  was 
lessening  every  day. 

Several  times  during  her  travels  she  had  heard 
Horace  spoken  of.  On  these  occasions  she 
had  not  betrayed  the  fact  that  she  had  any 
knowledge  of  him,  and  so  the  talk  about  him 
had  been  quite  unrestrained.  She  had  heard  it 
said  by  one  man  that  "  he  was  turning  out  a 
very  earnest  fellow  ";  by  another  that  "  his  pam- 
phlets were  making  quite  a  stir";  and,  again, 
that  he  "  might  do  something  worth  while  in 
diplomacy  if  he'd  let  philanthropy  alone."  An- 
other man  had  said  that  "  all  he  needed  was  to 
marry  money,  and  he'd  have  a  great  career  before 
him." 

"When  Bettina  returned  from  her  travels  these 
84 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

few  remarks,  overheard  at  dinner -tables  or  in 
public  places,  seemed  in  some  unaccountable  way 
to  be  the  most  important  things  she  had  secured 
out  of  her  late  experiences.  Certainly  they  were 
the  most  insistently  recurring,  and  the  idea  was 
forced  upon  her  that  the  way  in  which  men 
spoke  of  Horace  Spotswood  was  a  strong  con- 
trast to  the  tone  of  the  letter  from  Lord  Hurd- 
ly's  friend. 

All  this  was  a  source  of  distress  to  her.  She 
would  have  preferred  to  believe  the  letter,  for 
such  a  belief  would  have  rid  her  of  the  sting  of 
self-reproach ;  but,  try  as  she  might,  she  could 
not  wholly  get  her  consent  to  it. 

On  her  way  back  to  England  she  stopped  in 
Paris  to  choose  her  costumes  for  the  coming 
season.  It  was  a  pleasure  to  her  to  try  on  these 
beautiful  things,  which  she  bought  without  any 
thought  of  the  cost  of  them ;  but  it  was  a  pleas- 
ure which  she  had  become  accustomed  to,  and 
so  its  keenness  was  gone.  Besides  this,  she  had 
nothing  to  look  forward  to  except  the  London 
season,  and  custom  had  also  detracted  from  the 
zest  of  that.  She  was  in  the  attitude  of  always 
looking  beyond.  Surely,  with  such  a  position 
and  such  a  fortune  as  she  had  attained  to,  there 
must  be  something  to  satisfy  the  vague  longing 
85 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

within  her  which  she  called  desire  for  happi- 
ness. 

It  was  decided  that  they  were  to  stay  at  King- 
don  Hall  a  short  time  before  going  up  to  town, 
and  Bettina  had  looked  forward  to  the  freedom 
of  the  country  life  with  a  hopefulness  which  real- 
ity disappointed.  Here  again  she  thought  of 
Horace,  and  the  possible  injustice  she  had  done 
him  forced  its  way  into  her  consciousness,  and  so 
disturbed  her  with  doubts  and  misgivings  that 
she  determined  to  overcome  her  reluctance  to 
mention  Horace's  name  to  her  husband,  and  ask 
boldly  whether  he  had  actually  received  the  sum 
of  money  which  she  had  been  promised  that  he 
should  have.  It  had  become  so  essential  to  her 
to  know  about  this  that  she  determined  to  use 
her  very  first  opportunity  of  asking. 

Not  ten  minutes  after  she  had  made  this  reso- 
lution she  unexpectedly  encountered  Lord  Hurd- 
ly,  in  crossing  a  hall.  He  had  been  out  on 
horseback,  and  still  wore  his  riding-clothes.  The 
correct  and  carefully  fitted  leggings  showed  legs 
that  were  thin  and  shapeless.  Beneath  them 
were  small  feet,  on  which  their  owner  did  not 
step  very  firmly.  The  somewhat  showy  waist- 
coat and  short  coat  had  an  air  of  displaying 
themselves  and  concealing  the  form  beneath 
86 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

them,  which  was  perhaps  a  high  tribute  to  his 
tailor's  art.  His  chest  looked  narrower,  his  face 
more  wrinkled,  his  hair  thinner,  than  Bettina 
had  before  noticed  them  to  be,  and  there  was  a 
certain  loose-jointedness  in  his  figure  which, 
as  he  moved  toward  her  on  his  narrow  and  close- 
ly booted  feet,  gave  him  the  sort  of  teetering 
motion  of  the  elderly  beau.  His  face,  neutral 
and  cold  as  ever,  showed  the  signs  of  age  less, 
yet  Bettina  felt  that  it  masked  the  inadequacy 
of  his  soul  as  distinctively  as  his  clothes  masked 
that  of  his  body. 

As  they  came  toward  each  other — this  man 
and  this  woman,  whose  marriage  was  supposed 
to  be  a  union  of  two  into  one — the  face  of  each 
might,  by  an  eye  sensitive  to  the  subtleties  of 
human  expression,  have  been  seen  to  harden 
slightly.  Lord  Hurdly  took  off  his  hat  with  an 
automatic  motion  which  might  have  prompted 
the  thought  that  the  action  arose  from  his  ideal 
of  himself  rather  than  from  any  association  with 
the  woman  before  him. 

"  Excuse  me  for  detaining  you  a  moment," 
said  Bettina,  "but  I  want  to  know  whether  Hor- 
ace Spotswood  actually  received  the  money  which 
you  made  over  to  him  at  the  time  of  your  mar- 
riage to  me.  I  have  heard  that  he  is  leading  a 
87 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

very  active  life,  on  lines  where  money  will  be  of 
great  use  to  him.  Naturally  I  am  anxious  to  be 
sure  of  the  fact  that  he  has  suffered  no  injury, 
however  indirectly,  through  me." 

She  had  been  able  to  control  both  her  voice 
and  expression  entirely — a  fact  on  which  she  fer- 
vently congratulated  herself. 

"  You  may  feel  quite  at  ease  on  that  score,  I 
assure  you/'  Lord  Hnrdly  answered,  in  his  cold, 
incisive  tones.  "He  received  the  money,  and 
has  probably  used  it  for  the  furtherance  of  these 
ridiculous  and  sentimental  schemes  of  his.  This 
should  give  you  the  gratifying  assurance  that  he 
has  been  bettered,  and  not  worsted,  by  reason  of 
his  connection  with  you." 

The  tone  in  which  he  spoke  was  galling  to  Bet- 
tina,  but  she  made  no  answer,  though  no  words 
which  she  could  have  spoken  would  have  con- 
veyed a  greater  resentment  of  his  speech  than  did 
her  disdainful  silence.  She  made  a  motion  to 
move  away,  but  he  deliberately  placed  himself  in 
front  of  her,  saying,  in  the  same  hard  tone  : 

"It  occurred  to  me,  from  time  to  time  while 
we  were  abroad,  that  you  were  rather  eager  in 
gleaning  information  about  the  person  we  have 
been  speaking  of,  and  I  want  to  tell  you  that  what 
has  been  evident  to  me  may  be  evident  to  others. 
88 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

Yon  may  not  care  how  the  thing  looks,  but  as  I 
do,  perhaps  you  will  be  more  careful  in  the  fut- 
ure." 

His  use  of  the  word  "  eager "  in  connection 
with  her  attitude  in  this  affair  gave  Bettina  swift 
offence,  and  this  feeling  was  heightened  by  the 
suggestion  that  she  had  made  herself  liable  to 
criticism  on  such  a  subject. 

"  You  cannot,  I  think,"  she  answered,  in  a  tone 
of  proud  resentment,  "  be  more  careful  than  I  am 
that  I  shall  act  with  propriety  as  your  wife.  Since 
there  is  so  little  besides  the  form  to  be  complied 
with,  I  see  the  greater  necessity  for  punctilious- 
ness in  observing  that.  The  rebuke  you  have 
just  given  me  is  utterly  unmerited,  and  I  shall 
therefore  not  change  my  manner  of  conducting 
myself  in  any  particular." 

"  Perhaps  yon  will  think  better  of  that  deci- 
sion, and  will  oblige  me  by  not  making  yourself 
conspicuous  by  holding  your  breath  to  listen 
whenever  that  person  chances  to  be  mentioned. 
You  are  not  unlikely  to  hear  him  alluded  to  dur- 
ing the  coming  season,  as  he  has  been  making  a 
bid  for  popularity  at  his  new  post  by  taking  up 
the  matter  of  the  famine,  and,"  he  added  with  a 
sneering  smile,  "  relieving  it  with  the  money  I 
paid  him." 

89 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

The  word  cut  into  Bettina's  heart. 

"  Paid  him  ?"  she  said,  scrutinizing  him  with  a 
glance  before  which  even  his  hard  eyes  faltered. 
"  Paid  him  for  what  ?" 

"  Oh,  for  keeping  himself  out  of  my  way  I" 

She  felt  that  she  had  compelled  him  to  this  re- 
sponse, and  that  he  would  have  liked  to  put  it 
more  brutally.  As  it  was,  there  lurked  a  sting  in 
it  which  provoked  her  to  reply. 

"Did  he  hold  the  privilege  of  your  proximity 
at  so  large  a  price  ?" 

A  smile  of  quiet  irony  accompanied  the  words. 
As  it  curved  her  lips  alluringly,  Lord  Hurdly  felt 
himself  touched  with  the  sudden  sense  of  her 
powerful  charm.  No  one  else  on  earth  would 
have  dared  to  say  this  to  him,  or  anything  re- 
motely comparable  with  it.  There  was  something 
very  piquant  to  his  jaded  palate  in  the  flavor  of 
this  audacious  speech.  Instead  of  scowling,  there- 
fore, ho  smiled. 

' '  I  have  heard,"  he  said,  amiably,  "  that  Amer- 
ica was  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the 
brave,  and  certainly  you  seem  to  warrant  one  in 
accepting  that  belief." 

Bettina,  a  good  deal  relieved  at  this  turn  of  af- 
fairs, took  the  opportunity  that  the  moment  gave 
her  to  say,  gravely  : 

90 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"  No  ;  I  do  not  consider  myself  free.  I  have 
bound  myself,  in  my  marriage  to  you,  and  I  have 
no  intention  or  desire  to  forget  the  duties  which 
I  owe  you.  But  I  tell  you  frankly,  Lord  Hurdly, 
that  I  am  not  accustomed  to  either  surveillance 
or  tyranny,  and  I  shall  not  tamely  submit  to  them. 
In  the  carrying  out  of  this  resolution,  at  least, 
you  will  find  that  I  can  be  brave." 

She  looked  more  than  ordinarily  beautiful  as 
she  stood  erect  before  him  and  said  these  words, 
and  he  had  not  gazed  so  fully  into  her  eyes  for 
a  long  time.  He  had  almost  forgotten  their 
magnetic  loveliness.  At  sight  of  them  now 
his  pulses  beat  quicker.  A  desire  for  the  mas- 
tery of  this  splendid  creature  returned  to  him 
with  a  force  he  would  not  have  believed  pos- 
sible. 

"  Bettina/'  he  said,  in  a  voice  which  showed 
an  emotion  most  unusual  to  him,  "have  you  ever 
known  what  it  was  to  love,  I  wonder  ?" 

"Once — once  only,"  she  answered,  a  quaver  in 
her  voice  and  a  sudden  suffusion  of  tears  in  her 
eyes.  "  I  loved  my  mother.  No  one  that  ever 
lived  could  have  loved  more  truly  and  more  ar- 
dently than  I  loved  her  ;  but  there  it  began  and 
ended.  I  never  deceived  you  as  to  that.  I 
promised  you  duty  and  good  faith,  and  I  have 
91 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

not  failed  in  these.  I  never  shall  so  fail.  But 
love,  no  !  I  haven't  it  to  give." 

She  made  a  movement  to  go  forward,  and  he 
stood  aside  and  let  her  pass  him.  She  avoided 
meeting  his  gaze,  and  perhaps  it  "was  well  that 
she  did.  For  slowly  its  expression  changed.  A 
look  of  hardness  that  was  almost  significant  of 
dislike  came  into  his  eyes  and  compressed  his 
lips.  From  the  day  of  their  marriage  this  wom- 
an had  thwarted  and  baffled  him.  He  had  tried 
to  get  the  mastery  of  her,  but  he  had  failed,  and 
the  sense  of  that  failure  angered  him.  He  had 
been  used  to  dominating  every  one  with  whom 
he  came  into  any  sort  of  close  contact.  He  had 
married  this  American  girl  with  the  determina- 
tion to  dominate  her,  and  he  had  found  himself 
as  powerless  as  if  she  had  been  a  mist  maiden. 
There  was  no  way  in  which  he  could  lay  hold 
upon  her. 

Concerning  Bettina's  attitude  toward  him  he 
had  a  theory.  He  believed  that  she  had  really 
loved  Horace.  She  was  too  absolutely  in  the 
shadow  of  the  sorrow  of  her  mother's  death  to 
give  full  play  to  any  other  feeling,  but  he  had  al- 
ways felt,  in  every  effort  that  he  had  made  to 
win  her,  that  it  was  the  image  of  Horace  Spots- 
wood  in  her  mind  which  put  him  in  total  eclipse. 
92 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

This  theory  time  had  deepened.  His  suspicious 
watchfulness  over  her  every  word  and  look  had 
made  him  aware  that  she  listened  with  interest 
when  Horace's  name  was  mentioned,  and  his 
imagination  heightened  the  effect  of  her  interest, 
and  caused  him  to  conjecture  as  to  what  she 
might  have  heard  and  felt  at  such  times  as  he 
was  not  by.  Moreover,  a  certain  secret  con- 
sciousness in  his  own  soul  stimulated  him  in  his 
suspicions. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

DdEING  the  early  weeks  of  their  marriage 
Lord  Hurdly,  while  changing  his  atti- 
tude from  the  solicitude  of  the  pursuer 
to  the  masterfulness  of  the  possessor,  had  cer- 
tainly made  some  effort  to  win  Bettina,  while 
she,  on  her  part,  had  tried  to  oblige  him  by  re- 
sponding to  his  professions  for  her.  Both  were 
aware  that  this  effort  had  been  made  on  both 
sides,  and  that  it  had  quite  failed.  By  the  time 
the  honey-moon  was  over,  Lord  Hurdly  had,  to 
all  appearance,  ceased  to  care.  The  conscious- 
ness of  this  was  an  immense  relief  to  Bettina, 
and  she  had  felt  ever  since  that  in  doing  him 
credit  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  she  would  satisfy 
his  first  object  in  having  her  for  a  wife.  In  this 
she  had  not  failed.  There  was  a  distinct  estrange- 
ment between  them,  but  it  had  never  been  neces- 
sary to  define  it.  Whatever  disagreements  there 
had  been,  only  themselves  were  aware  of.  Lord 
Hurdly  would  have  felt  his  authority  over  her 
94 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

incomplete  indeed  if  he  had  ever  had  to  assert  it 
in  public. 

As  for  Bettina,  a  singular  change  of  feeling 
was  going  on  within  her.  She  had  made  her 
test  of  the  world,  and  found  that  she  had  over- 
rated its  power  to  please.  It  was  almost  appall- 
ing to  reflect  that  there  was  no  more  for  her  to 
do  than  to  repeat  what  she  had  already  done. 
Another  London  season,  another  autumn  in  re- 
ceiving and  making  visits,  another  winter  abroad. 
What  then?  "Was  there  nothing  but  material 
pleasure  for  her  in  the  world?  She  wanted  some- 
thing more,  something  different  from  all  this. 

One  morning  she  went  out  into  the  park,  where 
spring  was  just  beginning  to  put  forth  its  green- 
ery. Leaping  footsteps  sounded  behind  her.  It 
was  Comrade,  bounding  to  her  side  and  nestling 
up  against  her.  She  put  her  arm  around  his 
neck  and  drew  him  close.  He  responded  with 
an  affectionateness  that  was  almost  human. 

Almost  human !  At  this  thought  she  began  to 
ask  herself  how  much  human  affection  there  was 
for  her  in  the  world.  As  much,  no  doubt,  she 
told  herself,  as  she  had  to  bestow.  But  why  was 
this  ? 

The  birds  were  going  wild  with  song  in  the 
branches  above  her  head.  The  grass,  the  trees, 
95 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

the  clouds,  the  sky,  seemed  all  to  have  been 
made  to  be  part  of  a  world  for  love  to  dwell  in. 
A  great  hunger  possessed  her — a  hunger  not  to 
be  loved,  but  to  love.  For  the  first  time  she 
found  herself  longing  for  this  boon,  entirely 
apart  from  any  idea  of  her  mother.  Oh,  to  have 
some  one  with  a  human,  comprehending,  ardent 
heart,  to  put  her  arms  around  as  she  was  now 
clasping  Comrade — some  one  to  whom  to  offer 
up  the  wealth  of  love  which  she  had  once  thought 
she  could  never  give  except  to  her  dear  mother ; 
some  one  who  might  make  that  mother's  words 
come  true,  that  a  love  far  greater  than  any  she 
had  known  might  be  in  store  for  her ;  some  one, 
handsome,  charming,  ardent,  loving,  sympa- 
thetic, kind ;  some  one  to  be  friend  and  brother 
and  lover  all  in  one ;  above  all,  some  one  with 
thoughts  and  feelings  akin  to  her  own — some  one 
impulsive  and  natural — some  one  young ! 

When  at  last  she  said  good-bye  to  Comrade  and 
returned  to  her  rooms,  she  felt  in  some  strange 
way  that  a  new  era  had  dawned  for  her.  But  a 
mood  like  this  was  new  in  her  experience,  and 
she  fought  resolutely  against  its  recurrence.  As 
an  aid  to  this  end  she  threw  herself  more  eagerly 
into  the  external  interests  which  were  so  great 
in  such  a  position  as  hers,  and  became  more 
96 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

noted  for  her  splendid  entertainments  and  rich 
dressing  than  she  had  been  the  season  hefore. 
As  she  got  a  deeper  insight  into  the  conditions 
of  the  life  about  her,  she  saw  opportunities  for 
influence  and  power,  even  to  a  woman,  which  at- 
tracted her.  But  she  was  very  ignorant.  She 
knew  little  of  the  world  and  English  affairs,  and 
she  found  the  women  about  her  so  well  informed 
on  these  subjects  that  she  began  to  feel  herself 
at  a  certain  disadvantage.  This  roused  her 
pride,  and  she  set  to  work  to  inform  herself  on 
many  subjects  of  which  she  had  hitherto  been 
ignorant. 

One  means  to  this  end  was  the  reading  of  news- 
papers, and  this  occupation  now  absorbed  a  part 
of  every  morning.  In  this  way  she  occasionally 
came  upon  Horace  Spotswood's  name,  and  when 
she  did,  a  strange  agitation  would  possess  her. 
She  could  not  quite  shake  off  an  influence  which 
this  man's  life  seemed  to  exert  upon  hers.  Lord 
Hurdly  would  have  had  her  believe  that  she  had 
bestowed  a  great  benefit  upon  Horace,  as  it  was 
through  her  that  he  was  in  the  possession  of  his 
present  independent  fortune,  but  there  was  no 
voice  so  strong  as  the  one  in  her  own  heart  which 
told  her  that  she  had  wronged  him.  Here  and 
there  she  had  picked  up  the  impressions  of  many 
G  97 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

different  people  concerning  this  young  diploma- 
tist, and  unquestionably  the  aggregated  effect 
was  one  of  admiration.  The  brief  notices  of  him 
which  she  read  in  the  papers  confirmed  this  im- 
pression of  him.  He  was  doing  well,  for  a  man 
of  his  years,  in  diplomacy,  and  he  was  doing  more 
than  well  in  the  work  he  had  undertaken  for  the 
relief  of  the  famine-stricken  population  near  him. 

It  was  Horace's  interest  in  this  cause  which 
had  given  rise  to  Bettina's  interest  in  it,  and  she 
began  to  read  eagerly  all  that  she  could  find  on 
the  subject.  As  a  result  her  heart  was,  for  the 
first  time  in  her  life,  awakened  to  an  intense  per- 
ception of  the  suffering  of  the  world  at  large. 
It  was  a  new  emotion  to  her,  and  one  which 
throbbed  through  all  her  consciousness  with  a 
power  which  changed  her  individuality  even  to 
herself.  She  began  to  think  for  the  first  time 
of  the  utter  recklessness  with  which  she  had 
been  spending  the  large  sums  of  money  which 
Lord  Hurdly  placed  at  her  disposal.  Her  ex- 
penditure of  these  sums  heretofore  had  met 
with  his  entire  approval,  as  she  could  never  have 
too  rich  a  wardrobe  to  please  him.  It  was  all  a 
part  of  his  own  glory  and  importance,  and  he 
never  asked  a  question  as  to  how  the  money  went. 

But  now  the  tide  within  Bettina's  heart  had 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

turned.     As  she  read  of  the  sufferings  of  these 
starving  people,  the  thought  of  her  own  excess 
of  luxuriousness  sickened  her.     The  more  she 
felt  within  her  soul  that  nameless  sadness  which 
no  outside  help  could  relieve,  the  more  she  felt  | 
it  urgent  upon  her  to  relieve  the  wants  of  others  J 
when  this   assuagement  lay  within  her  actual 
power. 

It  may  seem  strange  that,  with  a  mother  who 
had  a  large-hearted  sympathy  with  all  sorrow, 
Bettina  should  have  kept  her  own  heart  so 
closed  to  the  suffering  outside  it;  but  no  seed 
can  sprout  until  the  soil  is  prepared  for  it,  and 
up  to  this  period  of  her  life  the  ground  of  Bet- 
tina's  heart  had  been  unprepared. 

Now,  however,  all  was  changed.  She  went  to 
balls  and  dinners,  as  her  position  as  Lord  Hurd- 
ly's  wife  demanded,  but  her  heart  was  elsewhere. 
She  began  to  economize  strictly  in  her  personal 
expenditure,  and  collected  all  the  ready  money 
she  could  lay  her  hands  on,  both  from  her  hus- 
band's allowance  and  from  her  own  small  private 
fortune,  and  sent  it  anonymously  to  the  Indian 
famine  fund. 

This  contribution  was  sent  in  with  no  other 
identification  than  "From  B.,"  written  on  the 
card  which  accompanied  it.    How  could  Bettina 
99 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

have  dreamed  that  any  living  soul  would  connect 
her  with  it  ? 

She  was  not  unaware,  however,  that  she  was 
constantly  watched  by  her  husband.  Since  she 
had  become  interested  in  her  new  pursuits  he 
observed  her  more  closely  than  ever,  and  on  the 
morning  of  the  publication  in  the  papers  of  the 
special  additions  to  the  famine  fund  which  con- 
tained her  own  subscription  Lord  Hurdly,  with 
apparently  no  reason  at  all,  read  the  list  aloud  to 
her  across  the  breakfast  table. 

"When  he  came  to  the  item  "  From  B.,"  he 
paused  and  looked  at  her  searchingly. 

Bettina  felt  her  face  turn  red. 

"I  thought  so,"  said  her  husband,  with  a 
strange  mixture  of  satisfaction  and  anger  in  his 
hard  tones.  "I  have  been  expecting  some  such 
foolery  as  this  for  some  time,  and  I  am  not  blind- 
ed to  the  motive  behind  it.  What  do  you  care 
about  those  devils  of  Indian  savages  ?  What 
does  Horace  Spotswood  care  about  them  ?  Just 
as  little  !  Enough,  and  too  much,  of  my  money 
has  gone  already  to  the  prolonging  of  their 
worthless  lives.  If  that  graceless  cub  chooses 
to  go  on  wasting  money  on  them  he  can  do  it, 
but  I  take  this  occasion  to  inform  you,  Lady 
Hurdly — and  I'd  advise  you  to  remember  what  I 
100 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

say — that  I  do  not  choose  that  any  more  of  my 
money  shall  go  in  that  direction.  Do  you  under- 
stand ?" 

There  was  an  insolence  in  his  tone  which  he 
had  never  used  to  her  before.  She  resented  it 
keenly.  Rising  to  her  feet,  with  an  instinct 
which  forbade  her  to  preside  over  the  table  at 
the  other  end  of  which  he  was  seated  as  master, 
she  said,  with  a  tinge  of  anger  in  her  quiet 
tones : 

"The  money  was  partly  my  own — from  my 
mother's  little  fortune ;  and  she  would  have  held, 
with  me,  that  I  could  put  it  to  no  more  holy  use. 
As  to  the  rest,  I  understood  that  that  also  was 
my  own.  I  did  not  know  that  you  required  of 
me  an  account  of  how  I  used  it." 

"  How  you  used  it  ?  Yoct  may  light  your  fire 
with  it,  for  all  I  care !  But  there  is  one  thing 
for  which  I  do  care,  and  which  I  mean  to  see 
nipped  in  the  bud ;  and  that  is  this  ridiculous 
sentimentality  which  you  are  indulging  in  over 
Horace  Spotswood.  If  you  are  regretting  your 
young  lover,  that  is  your  own  affair,  but  when 
you  come  to  flaunt  this  regret  before  the  eyes  of 
the  public  it  becomes  my  affair,  and  as  such  I 
propose  to  put  a  stop  to  it." 

Bettina  trembled  with  the  rage  of  resentment 
101 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

that  possessed  her.  She  recollected  herself 
enough,  however,  not  to  speak  until  she  had 
paused  long  enough  to  be  sure  that  she  could 
control  herself.  Then  she  said  : 

"Yon  are  forgetting  yourself,  Lord  Hurdly, 
when  you  presume  to  speak  to  me  as  you  have 
just  done.  I  have  given  you  no  occasion  to  do 
so,  and  you  know  it.  If  there  are  certain  re- 
grets in  my  marriage  to  you,  your  present  con- 
duct justifies  them.  But  permit  me  to  say,  on 
my  side,  that  I  can  imagine  no  explanation  of 
your  behavior,  except  to  suppose  that  it  proceeds 
from  a  consciousness  in  your  own  mind  of  hav- 
ing wronged  this  man." 

She  was  looking  at  him  narrowly.  His  feat- 
ures did  not  flush,  nor  did  his  cold  eyes  falter. 
And  yet,  in  spite  of  the  long  habit  of  guarded- 
ness  which  now  stood  him  in  such  good  stead, 
there  was  a  consciousness  about  him,  like  an  at- 
mosphere, which  told  her  that  her  thrust  had 
drawn  blood. 

"  I  thought  so  !"  she  said,  using  the  very  words 
which  he  had  used  to  her.  "  I  have  for  a  long 
time  been  struggling  in  my  mind  against  a  doubt 
which  sometimes  would  arise,  that  I  might  have 
been  deceived.  Everywhere,  in  public  and  in 
private,  that  I  hear  that  young  man  spoken  of, 
102 


A    MANIFEST   DESTINY 

it  is  with  words  of  confidence,  admiration,  and 
affection." 

Still  her  penetrating  gaze  was  on  him,  and  still 
he  bore  it  without  flinching. 

"  You  saw  the  letter,"  he  said,  with  a  sneer. 
"  If  that  was  not  enough  for  you — "  He  broke 
off  with  a  harsh,  unpleasant  laugh. 

"  It  was  enough,"  she  said.  ( '  Surely  it  has 
sufficed  to  fix  my  fate  in  life.  But  it  is  possible 
that  that  letter  gave  an  exaggerated  account. 
Still,  if  the  half  of  it  was  so,  I  was  more  than 
justified  in  cutting  loose  from  him.  No  one 
could  possibly  blame  me." 

"  No  one  does,  so  far  as  I  can  see,"  was  the 
malicious  answer.  "  I  hear  of  no  complaints 
from  others,  and  certainly  I  have  uttered  none. 
You  make  a  very  satisfactory  Lady  Hurdly,  and 
I  suppose  you  get  enough  out  of  the  position  to 
repay  you  for  anything  you  may  have  lost — at 
least,  from  the  world's  point  of  view,  you  should 
have  done  so." 

Bettina  did  not  answer  at  once.  A  sickness 
of  soul  was  creeping  over  her  that  made  all  life 
look  suddenly  loathsome.  The  one  feeble  ray 
that  penetrated  the  darkness  in  which  she  felt 
herself  enveloped  was  the  help  that  came  from  a 
certain  ideal  which  she  had  recently  enthroned 
103 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

in  her  own  heart.  As  the  world's  need,  the 
wider  issues  affecting  the  myriad  lives  beyond 
her  own,  had  recently  been  brought  before  her 
consciousness,  she  had  felt  her  way,  as  simply 
and  weakly  as  a  child  might  have  done,  to  one 
plain  principle  of  life — that  it  was  worth  while 
to  try  to  be  good.  Never  had  she  felt  so  keenly 
as  in  this  minute  the  utter  futility  of  hoping  to 
be  happy.  Yet  in  this  minute  she  felt  more 
than  ever,  also,  that  happiness  was  not  all. 

It  was  only  rarely  that  she  had  any  personal 
talk  with  her  husband.  The  wall  of  separation 
between  them  seemed  to  be  thickening  by  silent 
accretion  all  the  time.  It  was  very  difficult  to 
scale  this  wall,  and  she  felt  that  any  effort  to 
do  so  irked  him  no  less  than  it  did  her.  So, 
with  an  instinct  not  to  let  go  the  present  oppor- 
tunity, she  said,  rather  eagerly,  as  he  was  rising 
to  go  away : 

"Sit  down  a  moment.  "We  do  not  often  speak 
together.  I  have  something  on  my  mind  to  say 
to  you." 

He  resumed  his  seat  and  lighted  a  cigar — an 
action  which  discouraged  her  by  its  nonchalance. 
Still,  she  was  determined  to  go  on.  By  a  great 
effort  she  made  her  voice  very  gentle,  as  she 
said : 

104 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"  I  know  I  have  disappointed  you  in  what  you 
had  hoped  from  this  marriage  between  us,  and  I 
want  to  tell  you  I  am  very  sorry.  If  I  have  not 
been  able  to  give  you  the  feeling  which  you  de- 
sired— " 

He  interrupted  her. 

"  Feeling  ?"  he  said.  "  Who  wants  feeling 
nowadays  in  a  wife  ?  No  one  expects  it.  I  want- 
ed some  one  to  make  a  handsome  figure  as  Lady 
Hurdly.  I  expected  that  you  would  do  that,  and 
you  have  not  disappointed  me." 

"  If  this  is  true,  I'm  glad  to  know  it,"  she 
said ;  "  but,  at  any  rate,  you  could  not  blame  me 
for  not  giving  you  the  love  another  woman  might 
have  given  you.  I  never  deceived  you  as  to  that. 
I  told  you  I  had  not  that  love  to  give ;  not — as 
you  have  so  unjustly  hinted — because  I  had 
given  it  to  another  man,  but  because  I  was  then 
incapable  of  love.  I  had  no  thought  of  any  one 
beyond  myself.  I  was  miserably  ignorant  and 
egoistic.  It  was  in  ignorance  and  egoism  that 
I  took  the  position  of  your  wife,  but  I  think 
from  the  first  that  I  have  tried,  as  I  could,  to 
fulfil  its  obligations.  I  have  tried  to  be  and  to 
appear  what  yon  would  wish.  And  I  am  not 
unmindful  of  the  honor  and  distinction  which 
my  marriage  to  you  has  conferred  upon  me." 
105 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"  Gad !  I  should  hope  not !  One  of  the  big- 
gest positions  in  England !"  he  exclaimed,  in  a 
tone  of  scornful  irritation.  "With  these  words  he 
rose  and  left  the  room. 

Bettina's  pride  was  deeply  wounded.  It  had 
been  that  new  assertion  of  the  control  of  duty 
which  had  led  her  to  say  these  things  to  her  hus- 
band. She  had  conquered  much  in  herself  be- 
fore speaking,  and  she  felt  that  she  had  a  right 
to  resent  the  almost  brutal  insensibility  with 
which  he  had  received  her  words. 

As  she  turned  from  the  breakfast  -  room  and 
mounted  to  her  own  apartments  she  felt  conscious 
of  a  new  humiliation  in  her  life.  Up  to  this  time 
she  had  believed  that  Lord  Hurdly  would  have 
been  incapable  of  such  speech  as  he  had  used  to 
her  that  morning.  She  had  done  a  good  deal — 
more  than  was  required  of  her,  she  told  herself — 
in  speaking  to  him  as  she  had  done  after  his 
words  in  the  early  part  of  their  conversation,  and 
now  it  seemed  plain  to  her  that  she  had  ful- 
filled her  whole  duty  toward  him,  and  that  if  it 
had  done  no  good,  the  fault  was  on  his  side  and 
not  on  hers. 

Once  in  her  own  rooms,  she  gave  herself  up  to 
profoundly  sorrowful  thoughts.  She  was  only 
twenty-two.  How  long  the  path  of  her  future 
106 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

life  looked,  and  whither  would  it  lead  ?  She  had 
attained  all  that  any  woman  could  desire  in  the 
way  of  the  world's  bestowment.  She  did  not 
underrate  the  value  of  this.  On  the  contrary,  it 
was  as  essential  to  one  part  of  her  nature  as  some- 
thing far  different  in  the  way  of  human  possibility 
was  to  another  part.  She  did  not  lose  her  hold 
upon  the  actual  because  she  was  striving  after  the 
unattained.  All  this  power  and  admiration  was 
very  important  to  her,  though  she  felt  the  in- 
sufficiency of  mere  worldly  prosperity.  "  Pleasure 
to  have  it,  none;  to  lose  it,  pain,"  were  words 
that  very  nearly  fitted  her  state  of  mind.  At  the 
thought  of  going  back  to  the  obscurity  she  had 
come  out  of  she  shrank. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THAT  talk  with  Lord  Hurdly  made  a  distinct 
epoch  in  their  relations  to  each  other. 
Neither  ever  referred  to  it,  but  it  had  left 
its  impress  upon  both.  To  Bettina  it  gave  the 
assurance  that  she  had  done  all  that  could  pos- 
sibly be  required  of  her,  in  her  desire  to  come  to 
a  true  and  amicable  understanding  with  her  hus- 
band, and,  after  it,  she  had  a  greater  sense  of 
freedom.  To  Lord  Hurdly  it  gave  an  insight  into 
Bettina's  nature  which  he  had  not  had  before. 
He  found  her  to  be  possessed  of  a  power  of  caustic 
speech  which,  he  was  bound  to  acknowledge,  had 
made  him  feel  uncomfortable.  He  felt  also  that 
he  had  not  succeeded  in  asserting  his  supremacy 
over  her  quite  so  conclusively  as  he  could  have 
wished.  He  had,  moreover,  'an  uncomfortable 
warning,  from  the  recollection  of  her  words  and 
looks,  that  it  might  be  better  for  him  to  think 
twice  in  future  before  crossing  swords  with  her. 
He  was  a  man  who  hated  opposition,  and  who 
108 


A   MANIFEST   DESTINY 

was  quite  unused  to  dealing  with  it  in  his  own 
house.  He  was  still  master,  and  his  sovereignty 
no  one  had  even  questioned.  As  he  desired  to 
keep  this  so,  he  did  not  care  to  enter  into  any 
further  discussion  with  Bettina.  There  were 
circumstances  not  beyond  his  conceiving  which 
might  cause  him  a  greater  loss  of  prestige  than 
any  already  endured,  and  the  thought  of  these 
made  him  careful  to  avoid  coming  again  into  close 
quarters  with  Bettina. 

This  position  on  his  part  led  to  an  attitude 
toward  his  wife  which  might  have  been  inter- 
preted agreeably,  since  he  no  longer  seemed  to 
watch  her  so  narrowly  as  he  had  done.  He 
seemed,  without  speaking  on  the  subject,  to  give 
her  rather  more  freedom,  and  he  never  again 
referred  to  her  interest  in  the  Indian  famine  or 
in  the  doings  of  Horace  Spotswood. 

Yet  Bettina  had  the  same  uncomfortable  sense 
of  being  criticised  and  held  to  strict  account. 
She  felt  as  if  evidence  were  rolling  up  against 
her  which  might  one  day  be  brought  before  her 
all  at  once. 

She  had,  however,  acquired  a  thirst  for  some 
knowledge  of  things  beyond  her  own  narrow  in- 
terests, which  was  not  to  be  calmed  except  by 
indulgence.  When  she  looked  about  her  in  the 
100 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

great  throbbing  life  of  London,  she  found  so 
many  objects  which  seemed  absolutely  to  stand 
waiting  for  her  interest  and  participation  that 
she  was  soon  canght  in  the  strong  movement  of 
woman's  work  in  social  life  in  its  wider  and 
deeper  meaning. 

No  sooner  was  it  found  that  Lady  Hurdly  was 
willing  to  interest  herself  in  such  matters  than 
they  came  crowding  upon  her.  It  was  a  new 
and  delightful  consciousness  to  her  that  she 
might  become  part  of  the  power  that  was  work- 
ing against  the  evil  in  the  world,  and  she  threw 
herself  into  the  effort  with  spirit  and  enthusiasm. 

Life  became  better  for  her  after  that.  The 
importance  of  her  position  was  borne  into  her  in 
a  new  and  better  way.  By  being  Lady  Hurdly 
she  might  hope,  perhaps,  to  do  some  little  ser- 
vice in  bettering  the  lots  of  those  who  were  at 
the  other  extreme  of  life's  scale  from  her,  where- 
as if  she  had  remained  in  her  former  position 
she  would  have  had  as  little  value  at  one  end  as 
at  the  other. 

Apart  from  these  considerations  of  pure  altru- 
ism was  the  sweet  thought  that  she  was  drawing 
nearer  to  her  mother  in  spirit,  now  that  she  was 
trying  so  hard  to  give  help  to  others  ;  and  some- 
times another  thought  would  come.  This  was 
110 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

that,  far  apart  as  their  lives  must  be,  she  was 
trying  to  do  in  her  sphere  what  Horace  was  do- 
ing in  his,  and  perhaps  with  the  same  hope  in 
the  heart  of  each — namely,  that  the  record  of  the 
future  might  help  to  compensate  for  the  mis- 
takes and  wrong-doings  of  the  past.  She  found 
herself  passionately  hoping  that  he  had  flung  his 
evil  past  behind  him,  just  as  she  was  trying  to 
throw  hers. 

Under  these  changed  conditions,  Bettina's 
second  season  in  London  was  unlike  the  first  in 
both  its  object  and  its  results.  From  some  un- 
known and  unquestioned  source  she  was  becom- 
ing penetrated  with  the  "scorn  for  miserable 
aims  that  end  with  self,"  and  by  the  time  that 
she  was  ready  to  return  to  Kingdon  Hall  her  life 
had  become  so  informed  with  its  new  purpose 
that  she  looked  forward  to  the  leisure  which  her 
removal  there  would  give  with  real  satisfaction 
in  its  opportunity  for  better  work.  Besides,  she 
had  now  in  view  a  personal  supervision  of  the 
affairs  on  the  Kingdon  Hall  estate,  which  she 
was  eager  to  enter  into.  She  had  awakened  to 
the  duty  of  looking  after  the  interests  of  tenants 
and  the  good  of  the  parish. 

Whether  she  would  have  the  approval  of  her 
husband  in  such  work  or  not  she  was  unable  to 
111 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

guess.  So  far,  beyond  a  rather  cynical  and  dis- 
tant observation  of  her  new  interests  he  had 
never  interfered,  but  she  guessed  that  the  proba- 
ble explanation  of  this  fact  was  that  he  felt  that 
her  prominence  in  philanthropic  activities,  which 
had  been  approved  by  the  best  society,  was  a 
new  way  of  reflecting  glory  upon  himself. 

For,  as  time  had  passed  and  Bettina  had  got  a 
truer  insight  into  the  man  she  had  married,  the 
fact  had  confronted  her  that  he  was  egoistic  to 
the  last  degree.  His  cold  neutrality  of  manner 
veiled  this  to  most  people,  but  to  her  keen  and 
constant  observation  the  length  and  breadth  of 
his  egoism  were  at  times  almost  sickening. 

She  was  therefore  not  unprepared  for  what 
happened  when  she  began  her  visiting  among 
the  poor  at  Kingdon  and  her  investigation  into 
the  needs  of  her  husband's  tenants.  She  had 
gone  to  work  openly  about  it,  and  he  had  taken 
no  notice  ;  but  one  morning,  when  he  was  about 
to  leave  for  a  few  days'  hunting  in  one  of  the 
neighboring  counties,  he  said  to  her,  at  the  mo- 
ment of  departure  : 

"I  want  to  tell  you  that  I  do  not  approve  of 

the  innovations  which  you  are  beginning  to  make 

in  the  management  of  affairs  on  the  estate.    The 

ladies  of  Kiugdon  Hall,  heretofore,  have  left 

113 


A    MANIFEST   DESTINY 

these  matters  to  their  husbands,  and  I  prefer 
that  you  do  the  same.  I  mention  it  now  so  that 
I  may  see  no  signs  of  interference  on  my  re- 
turn." 

It  was  not  at  all  unusual  for  him  to  take  this 
tone  with  her,  and  he  was  following  his  usual 
custom  in  speaking  to  her  in  a  moment  of  haste, 
whenever  he  had  anything  unpleasant  to  say. 
He  could,  in  this  way,  eod  the  conversation 
where  he  chose,  and  she  saw  that  he  had  no  in- 
tention  of  lingering  now.  The  cart  was  at  the 
door,  and  he  had  on  his  overcoat  and  even  his 
hat,  and  stood  drawing  on  and  buttoning  his 
gloves,  with  an  unlighted  cigar  between  his 
teeth.  His  eyes  were  bent  upon  his  task,  under 
frowning  brows. 

His  cool  and  careless  words,  which  her  knowl- 
edge of  him  taught  her  were  the  veneering  for 
an  inexorable  resolution,  gave  her  a  shock  of  dis- 
appointment. She  did  not  often  take  a  humble 
tone  with  him,  but  there  was  humility  as  well  as 
entreaty  in  her  voice  as  she  now  said, 

"You  won't  forbid  my  going  to  see  the  ten- 
ants, and  making  things  a  little  better  for  them, 
if  I  can,  will  you  ?" 

"I  forbid  all  interference,"  he  answered,  in  a 
tone  that  made  her  feel  that  he  relished  the  ex- 
it 113 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

ercise  of  his  power.  "  You  can  safely  leave  the 
affairs  of  my  tenants  to  me.  They  have  fared 
sufficiently  well  in  my  hands  so  far." 

At  one  time  these  words  and  tones  would  have 
provoked  a  sharp  retort,  but  Bettina  had  so  far 
changed  since  the  early  months  of  her  marriage 
that  the  thoughts  of  her  own  wrongs  and  indig- 
nities were  now  less  insistent  than  the  troubles 
of  these  poor  people,  which  she  had  hoped  to  be 
able  to  alleviate. 

"  Oh,  indeed  you  are  mistaken  I"  she  said, 
urgently.  "  You  do  not  know  how  much  they 
need  what  a  very  little  money  and  effort  would 
supply  them  with.  Don't  refuse  to  let  me  help 
them.  It  is  a  thing  so  near  to  my  heart." 

She  saw  his  face  grow  harder. 

"  It  is  also,"  he  said,  "  near  my  pocket.  Go- 
ing in  for  charity  is  all  very  well,  if  it  amuses 
you,  and  I  did  not  interfere  with  your  doing  so  in 
London.  Here,  however,  it  is  different.  The 
time  has  come  to  stop  it." 

His  words  hurt  her  pride,  and  she  felt,  too, 
that  he  liked  the  position  of  being  entreated  by 
her.  She  had  an  instinct  to  retort  sharply,  but 
another  instinct  was  stronger.  She  was  feeling 
what  was  a  new  sensation  to  her — a  willingness  to 
humble  her  pride  that  others  might  be  benefited. 
114 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"  I  have  never  given  money  without  first  sat- 
isfying myself  that  you  approved  it/'  she  said, 
"and  I  will  promise  you  to  regulate  my  public 
charities  in  future  strictly  in  accordance  with 
whatever  limitations  you  may  set.  But  don't 
refuse  to  let  me  work  a  little  here — it  will  not 
take  much  money — among  the  poor  at  our  very 
doors." 

Instead  of  softening  him,  as  she  had  hoped 
that  this  attitude  of  humility  would  do,  her 
words  seemed  to  have  the  opposite  effect.  She 
had  a  feeling,  all  at  once,  that  he  enjoyed  making 
her  appeal  to  him,  because  it  would  give  him  the 
still  greater  pleasure  of  refusing. 

He  did  not  answer  at  once.  It  seemed  to 
please  him  to  keep  her  waiting.  His  gloves 
were  now  neatly  fastened  on  his  long  thin  hands, 
and  with  great  deliberation  he  took  out  his 
match-box  and  proceeded  to  light  his  cigar.  She 
noticed  that  he  did  not  ask  permission  to  do  so, 
as  he  would  certainly  have  done  at  one  time — as 
he  would  also,  undoubtedly,  at  one  time  have  re- 
moved his  hat  while  talking  to  her.  Still,  these 
signs  of  a  diminished  deference  toward  her 
touched  her  lightly  compared  with  the  impor- 
tance which  she  attached  to  his  answer  to  her 
question. 

115 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

She  watched  him  narrowing  his  eyes,  to  avoid 
the  smoke  which  he  was  now  puffing  from  his 
just-lighted  cigar,  and  waited  for  him  to  speak. 

Always  scrupulously  careful  in  small  things, 
he  walked  to  the  window  to  throw  away  the  end 
of  the  extinguished  match.  It  suddenly  came 
over  her  that  he  did  not  intend  to  answer  her 
last  words. 

Perhaps  he  wanted  to  make  her  urge  him  fur- 
ther. At  this  her  heart  rebelled.  She  would 
not.  Still,  the  idea  of  his  going  off  for  several 
days,  leaving  the  question  unsettled,  was  too  an- 
noying to  contemplate.  As  he  moved  toward 
the  door  she  said  : 

"You  have  not  answered  me." 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said,  with  chill  polite- 
ness. "  I  answered  you  in  the  beginning.  I  wish 
you  to  leave  the  management  of  the  tenants' 
affairs  where  they  properly  belong — with  me." 

So  saying,  he  lifted  his  hat,  bowed,  and  went. 

Bettina  stood  where  he  had  left  her,  trembling 
with  indignation  from  the  sense  of  being  treat- 
ed tyrannically  by  a  person  who  exercised  an  ar- 
bitrary power  over  her  which  she  could  not  dis- 
pute. What  had  she  ever  done  to  deserve  such 
treatment  at  his  hands  ?  How  dared  he  treat 
her  so  ? 

116 


With  the  new-born  instinct  of  rectitude  within 
her  she  tried  to  see  if  there  was  any  reasonable 
ground  for  the  real  dislike  of  her  which  now 
seemed  to  be  in  her  husband's  mind.  With 
every  desire  to  be  honest,  she  could  think  of 
none  except  the  fact  that  she  had  not  answered 
to  his  rein.  He  could  hardly  resent  her  not  lov- 
ing him,  for  he  had  married  her  without  asking 
that ;  and  besides,  what  did  he  know  of  love, 
as  she  was  now  beginning  to  comprehend  it  ? 
•No,  it  was  not  that  which  he  resented  in  her ;  it 
was  the  fact  that,  although  she  chose  to  conform 
to  him  in  outward  things,  he  had  never  obtained 
the  mastery  of  her  in  the  manner  which,  to  his 
ideas,  befitted  the  relationship  of  Lord  and  Lady 
Hurdly.  She  thought  of  the  picture  of  his  meek 
little  mother  and  masterful-looking  father. 


CHAPTER  X 

BETTINA  had  been  left  to  the  lonely  idle- 
ness of  her  own  reflections  but  a  few  days 
when  the  monotony  of  her  life  was  bro- 
ken by  one  of  those  sudden  events  which,  by  the 
vastness  of  their  consequences,  seem  not  only  to 
change  the  face  of  nature  for  us,  and  the  aspect 
of  all  the  world  without,  but  also  to  change  our- 
selves, in  our  spirits  and  minds,  so  that  we  can 
never  be  the  same  creatures  that  we  were  before. 
She  received  a  telegram  announcing  that  Lord 
Hurdly  had  been  killed  in  the  hunting-field. 

Poor  Bettina,  with  all  her  faults  and  limita- 
tions, had  something  of  her  mother's  noble  nat- 
ure in  her,  and  this  element  of  her  somewhat 
complicated  individuality  had  been  the  part  of 
her  which  had  expanded  most  of  late.  Her  first 
feelings,  therefore,  were  unmingled  pity  and  re- 
gret. She  did  not  think  of  herself  and  of  how 
all  things  would  be  changed  for  her.  Her  whole 
thought  was  of  him  who  so  long  had  existed  in 
118 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

her  mind  as  the  image  of  pride  and  indomitable 
self-will,  but  who  had  now  become,  in  one  mo- 
ment, the  object  of  her  deepest  pity.  She  had 
scarcely  ever  thought  of  death  in  connection 
with  him.  He  had  seemed  as  sound  as  steel. 
She  had  never  heard  him  speak  of  the  least  symp- 
tom of  illness,  and  now  the  paper  in  her  hand 
informed  her  that  he  was  dead. 

How  thankful  she  was  that  she  had  not  spo- 
ken to  him  angrily  in  their  last  talk !  How  she 
wished  that  she  had  said  just  one  kind  word  to 
him  at  parting !  True,  he  had  given  her  no  op- 
portunity ;  but  if  she  had  known — 

Suddenly  she  burst  into  violent  weeping,  and 
in  this  condition  they  found  her,  with  the  tele- 
gram on  the  floor  at  her  feet. 

"  Who  would  have  thought  my  lady  would 
have  taken  it  so  hard  ?"  said  Mrs.  Parlett,  when 
the  exciting  news  was  heard  down-stairs.  "  They 
was  that  'aughty  to  one  another  before  people ! 
But  it's  them  as  feels  the  most,  sometimes/' 

This  remark  was  addressed  to  Nora,  in  the 
hope  of  eliciting  a  response,  but  Nora  excelled 
in  the  art  of  holding  her  tongue. 

It  was  she  alone  who  was  admitted  to  her  mis- 
tress's apartments,  where  Bettina  remained,  in 
deep  agitation,  while  the  preparations  for  the  ar- 
119 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

rival  of  Lord  Hurdly's  body  were  being  made. 
After  her  profound  emotion  of  pity  for  him,  her 
next  thought  had  been  of  Horace.  He  was  the 
heir  and  nearest  of  kin.  It  flashed  upon  her, 
with  the  suddenness  of  surprise,  that  he  was 
Lord  Hurdly  now. 

How  strange,  how  absolutely  bewildering,  this 
new  state  of  things  seemed  !  Her  mind  seemed 
unable  to  grasp  the  strangeness  of  these  new  con- 
ditions. 

Bettina  saw  no  one  but  the  rector  of  the  par- 
ish. All  that  had  to  be  done  was  so  plain  and 
simple,  and  there  were  so  many  capable  hands 
to  do  it,  that  there  was  little  need  to  consult  with 
her.  She  begged  the  rector  to  act  in  her  stead 
in  giving  all  necessary  directions.  It  was  with  a 
deep  sense  of  relief  that  she  reflected  on  the  im- 
possibility of  Horace's  arrival  in  time  for  the 
funeral.  Perhaps  she  could  get  away  somewhere 
before  he  came. 

Those  days  when  her  husband's  body  lay  in 
the  apartment  near  her,  and  the  relations  and 
friends  assembled  to  do  it  an  honor  which  in  his 
lifetime  they  were  scarcely  suffered  to  express, 
marked  the  period  of  the  real  awakening  of 
Bettina's  soul.  The  sense  of  freedom  which  her 
position  now  secured  to  her,  the  power  to  do  and 
120 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

be  what  she  chose,  was  like  wings  to  her  spirit, 
and  for  the  first  time  in  her  experience  the 
woman  and  the  hour  were  met. 

When  she  had  been  free  before  to  make  her 
own  life,  her  vision  had  been  so  limited,  her  as- 
piration so  low,  her  interest  in  the  heart-beats  of 
the  great  humanity  of  which  her  little  life  was 
so  small  a  part  had  been  so  uncomprehending, 
that  she  had  cared  on'y  for  the  narrow  issues 
which  concerned  herself.  But  now,  in  the  hour 
which  saw  her  free  again,  she  was  another  wom- 
an, and  this  woman  had  a  passionate  purpose  in 
her  heart  to  make  herself  avail  for  the  needs  of 
others. 

She  resolved  that  the  moment  her  affairs  were 
settled  her  new  life  should  begin.  The  period 
of  her  marriage  had  opened  up  before  her  vast 
opportunities,  of  which  she  was  eager  to  take 
advantage.  These  would  need  money  for  their 
carrying  out,  but  that  she  would  have  money 
enough  she  had  never  doubted.  Of  course  until 
the  reading  of  the  will  it  would  not  be  known 
what  provision  had  been  made  for  her,  but  Lord 
Hurdly  had  always  been  extremely  generous  as 
to  money,  and  she  had  no  misgivings  on  that 
score. 

At  last  the  funeral  was  over  and  the  house  waa 
121 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

rid  of  guests.  Various  cousins  and  friends  had 
shown  their  willingness  to  remain  and  bear  her 
company,  but  Bettina,  with  the  rector's  aid,  had 
managed  to  get  rid  of  these.  She  wanted  to  be 
alone  and  to  think  out  some  course  of  future 
action,  for  she  was  still  in  a  state  of  absolute  un- 
adjustment  to  her  new  situation. 

It  had  turned  out  that  Lord  Hurdly  had  left 
her  an  income  of  one  thousand  pounds.  Her 
first  realization  of  the  smallness  of  this  provision 
for  her  came  from  the  rector's  comment,  which 
was  spoken  in  a  tone  as  if  reluctantly  cen- 
sorious. 

"  I  should  not  have  believed  Lord  Hurdly 
capable  of  such  a  thing,"  he  said.  "  I  am  sure 
that  all  who  have  cared  for  his  honorable  repu- 
tation must  regret  this  as  much  on  his  account 
as  on  yours." 

"  Is  it  so  little  ?"  said  Bettina,  too  proud  to 
show  disappointment.  "A  thousand  pounds  a 
year  seems  a  sufficient  sum  for  the  support  of 
one  woman." 

"  For  some  women,  perhaps,"  was  the  answer, 
"but  not  for  the  woman  who  has  once  held  the 
position  of  mistress  of  Kingdon  Hall.  I  repeat 
that  I  would  not  have  believed  it  of  Lord 
Hurdly." 

122 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

Bettina  did  not  hear  his  last  emphatic  words, 
or,  at  all  events,  took  no  conscious  cognizance 
of  them.  She  was  absorbed  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  her  new  condition.  How  strange  it 
seemed ! 

It  was  something  more  than  strange.  She 
had  been  too  long  in  possession  of  the  power 
and  importance  of  being  the  reigning  Lady 
Hurdly,  so  to  speak,  not  to  feel  a  real  revolt  at 
the  idea  of  seeing  herself  laid  on  the  shelf.  It 
would  not  necessarily  be  so  bad  if  she  had  had 
ample  means,  for  she  had  made  a  place  for  her- 
self in  the  world.  But  she  was  certain,  from  the 
air  of  commiseration  with  which  not  only  the 
rector  but  others  had  regarded  her,  that  she 
would  be  extremely  curtailed  in  such  opportuni- 
ties as  depended  upon  money  ;  and  she  had  suf- 
ficient insight  into  social  affairs  to  know  how  the 
possession  of  money  broadened  opportunity,  and 
the  absence  of  it  limited  power. 

There  was  no  denying  to  herself  the  pain  that 
it  gave  her  to  relinquish  such  a  position.  She 
had  accommodated  herself  to  greatness  so  natu- 
rally that  it  seemed  incredible  that  she  was  to 
sink  back  into  a  life  of  obscurity.  Frankly,  she 
did  not  like  it. 

And  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  she  felt  an  nn- 
123 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

feigned  gladness  that  Horace  was  to  come  to  his 
own.  She  rejoiced  that  no  child  of  hers  would 
ever  stand  in  his  way.  She  had  reason  to  hope 
that  he  would  use  his  great  position  to  great 
ends,  for  the  residuum  of  all  her  turbid  and  agi- 
tating thoughts  about  him  was  an  admiration  for 
the  man  in  his  attitude  toward  the  world,  no 
matter  how  much  she  still  resented  his  attitude 
toward  herself.  That  this  last  was  so,  there 
needed  no  stronger  proof  than  her  eager  resolu- 
tion to  get  away  from  Kingdon  Hall — out  of  the 
country,  if  possible — before  the  arrival  of  the 
man  whose  place  her  husband  had  once  taken, 
and  who,  in  another  sense,  was  now  to  take  his. 


CHAPTER  XI 

IT  was  some  time  before  Bettina  realized  the 
changed  conditions  of  her  life  consequent 
upon  her  husband's  extremely  small  provision 
for  her.  In  England,  in  the  only  society  which 
she  knew,  it  would  be  a  mere  pittance,  after  what 
she  had  always  had  there;  but  in  America,  in 
her  old  home,  which  she  had  always  kept  as  her 
mother  left  it,  it  would  be  almost  riches.  Some- 
times she  thought  of  going  back  there  for  good, 
and  leaving  the  great  world  in  which  she  had 
found  so  little  joy.  But  it  was  this  world  which 
could  give  her,  as  she  now  knew,  the  best  sub- 
stitute that  can  be  offered  for  joy  —  active  and 
interesting  occupation.  Having  once  known  the 
inspiration  of  this,  the  stagnation  of  her  old 
home  was  not  to  be  thought  of  for  a  perma- 
nency. It  seemed  to  her  best,  however,  to  go 
there  for  a  short  time  to  look  after  the  money 
interests  now  become  important  to  her,  and 
from  there  to  seek  some  work  for  the  faculties 
125 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

which  she  had  only  lately  realized  that  she  pos- 
sessed. 

In  her  heart  she  conld  but  feel  a  certain 
wounded  pride  in  the  altered  position  to  which 
her  husband  had  deliberately  condemned  her. 
She  felt  that  it  was  his  way  of  punishing  her  for 
not  having  been  a  more  conformable  wife.  He 
had  not  succeeded,  in  his  life,  in  humbling  her 
pride ;  he  would  therefore  do  it  now.  She  felt 
that  he  must  have  had  some  intention  of  this 
sort. 

That  instinct  was  confirmed  by  the  family 
lawyer,  who  told  her,  when  he  came  to  have  a 
talk  on  business,  that  Lord  Hurdly  had  expressed 
to  him  the  supposition,  and  even  the  wish,  that 
she  should  return  to  America  to  live. 

Under  other  conditions  her  husband's  wish 
would  have  greatly  influenced  her  decision,  but 
under  these  it  had  no  weight  whatever.  She 
could  not  help  feeling  that  she  had  been  harshly 
treated.  It  was  not  the  actual  loss  of  money 
that  she  minded ;  it  was  the  slight  implied  there- 
by. She  had  married  Lord  Hurdly  without  any 
pretence  of  loving  him.  He  had  not  required 
that  of  her ;  and  she  had  done  her  best  to  main- 
tain her  position  as  his  wife  in  accordance  with 
his  wishes.  These  had  often  conflicted  with  her 
126 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

own,  but  in  such  cases  she  had  always  yielded. 
She  felt,  therefore,  that  she  had  been  treated 
with  injustice. 

The  chief  sting  of  this  feeling  was  in  connec- 
tion with  the  thought  of  Horace.  It  made  her 
flush  with  shame  when  she  reflected  that  he  was 
bound  to  know  that  the  man  for  whom  she  had 
given  him  up  had  treated  her  so  slightingly. 
Under  the  spur  of  this  thought  she  had  a  wild 
impulse  to  run  away  to  America,  where  he  should 
never  see  or  hear  of  her  again.  Business  affairs 
compelled  her  to  remain  in  England  for  a  short 
while,  but  she  was  quite  determined  to  leave  it 
before  Horace  should  arrive. 

One  morning,  quite  unexpectedly,  she  got  a 
cable  despatch  from  him.  It  was  addressed  to 
Lady  Hurdly,  at  Kingdon  Hall,  and  was  in  these 
words  :  "  Kindly  remain  and  act  for  me  until  I 
can  arrive.  Unavoidably  detained  here.— SPOTS- 
WOOD." 

This  direct  message  from  the  young  lover  who 
had  once  been  so  near  to  her  life  moved  Bet- 
tina  to  strange  emotions.  She  was  aware  that 
Mr.  Cortlin,  the  family  lawyer,  had  written  him 
that  she  was  going  away  as  soon  as  possible,  and 
he  had,  of  course,  been  informed  of  all  the 
conditions  of  his  cousin's  will.  Not  one  penny 
127 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

had  been  left  him  except  what  was  his  by  legal 
right ;  but  Lord  Hurdly's  personal  fortune  had 
been  an  inconsiderable  part  of  the  estate,  so  that 
Horace  was  now  a  man  of  great  wealth  as  well  as 
the  bearer  of  an  old  and  noble  title. 

The  signature  to  this  telegram  was  one  of  the 
things  that  affected  Bettina.  The  telegrams  sent 
to  the  lawyers,  the  rector,  and  others  had  been 
signed  "Hurdly."  Several  of  these  she  had  seen. 
It  seemed  to  her,  therefore,  a  very  delicate  in- 
stinct which  had  caused  him  to  refrain  from 
the  use  of  her  husband's  name  in  addressing 
her.  He  had  always  been  delicate  in  his  in- 
tuitions and  expressions,  or  at  least  so  it  had 
seemed. 

The  effect  of  this  telegram  upon  Bettina  was 
to  make  her  more  confused  and  uncertain  in  her 
plans  than  she  had  been  before.  She  felt  a 
strong  instinct  to  avoid  meeting  Horace  again, 
and  yet  this  telegram  was  in  the  form  of  a  re- 
quest, and  she  could  hardly  refuse  to  do  him  a 
favor.  In  the  midst  of  her  perplexity  a  servant 
brought  word  that  Mr.  Cortlin  had  arrived  and 
asked  to  see  her. 

When  the  lawyer  entered,  with  his  usual  obse- 
quious bow,  Bettina  received  him  with  a  rather 
cold  civility.  Her  manner  had  become  distinctly 
128 


A    MANIFEST   DESTINY 

more  haughty  since  her  descent  in  the  scale  of 
social  and  pecuniary  importance. 

Mr.  Cortlin  did  not  take  the  seat  to  which  she 
invited  him,  but  remained  standing,  with  his  hat 
in  his  hand,  as  he  said  : 

"  A  former  client  of  mine,  and  friend  of  his 
late  lordship,  Mr.  Fitzwilliam  Clarke,  who  died 
about  a  year  ago,  left  in  my  keeping  a  letter  to 
your  ladyship,  which  he  instructed  me  to  deliver 
in  person  upon  the  death  of  Lord  Hurdly.  I  am 
come  now,  my  lady,  in  the  fulfilment  of  that 
trust." 

Bettina  looked  at  him  in  amazement. 

"  There  must  be  some  mistake,"  she  said.  "I 
know  no  Mr.  Fitzwilliam  Clarke.  I  have  never 
even  heard  his  name." 

"  That  may  be,  my  lady,  but  there  is  no  mis- 
take. This  letter  was  meant  for  you." 

Bettina  took  the  letter  he  held  out,  and  opened 
it  with  a  certain  incredulous  haste.  Mr.  Cortlin 
at  the  same  moment  walked  away  to  a  window, 
and  stood  there  with  his  back  turned  while  Bet- 
tina read  the  following  sentences  : 

"  MY  DEAR  LADY  HUEDLY, — Should  this  let- 
ter ever  come  to  your  eyes,  you  will  be  at  that 
time  a  widow,  as  I  have  left  instructions  that  it 
i  129 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

shall  be  delivered  only  in  the  event  of  your  sur- 
viving your  husband.  By  that  time  I  shall  have 
passed  into  the  unknown  world,  where,  if  such 
things  can  be,  I  shall  have  had  with  Lord  Hurdly 
an  understanding  which,  by  the  hard  conditions 
he  imposed  on  me,  was  impossible  in  this  life. 
But  before  leaving  the  world  of  human  life  and 
action  I  wish  to  make  sure  that  at  least  one 
wrong  which  came  about  through  me  will  have 
been  repaired  by  me.  I  am  aware  that  the  rupt- 
ure of  your  engagement  of  marriage  to  Mr. 
Horace  Spotswood  was  caused  chiefly  by  a  letter 
shown  you  by  Lord  Hurdly,  and  purporting  to 
come  from  an  altogether  trustworthy  source — a 
man  who  was  on  the  spot  and  who  was  a  per- 
sonal friend  of  his.  I  was  that  man.  I  was  on 
the  spot  because  I  was  sent  there  by  Lord  Hurd- 
ly for  the  purpose  of  writing  this  letter.  For 
reasons  which  I  need  not  enter  into  he  had  me 
in  his  power,  and  until  one  of  us  shall  be  dead 
he  can  force  me  to  do  his  will.  If  you  ever  hold 
this  letter  in  your  hand  and  read  these  words  we 
shall  both  be  dead,  and  by  this  letter  I  desire  to 
make  reparation  for  a  base  and  cruel  wrong 
which  I  have  helped  to  inflict  upon  an  honorable 
and  high-minded  gentleman.  I  allude  to  the 
man  who,  when  you  read  these  words,  will  bear 
130 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

the  name  and  title  of  Lord  Hurdly.  The  things 
I  wrote  of  him  are  in  absolute  contradiction  to 
the  truth,  for  a  nobler  and  more  loyal  heart 
never  beat.  You  might  well  discredit  any  assur- 
ance which  comes  by  means  of  me,  and  I  do  not 
ask  to  have  my  words  accepted.  All  I  expect  to 
accomplish  is  that  you  shall  pay  enough  attention 
to  my  statement  to  investigate  the  matter  for 
yourself.  He  is  well  known,  and  once  your  ears 
are  open  you  will  hear  enough  to  prove  to  you 
that  he  has  been  wronged.  That  I  have  wronged 
him,  though  reluctantly  and  by  reason  of  a  power 
I  could  not  resist,  is  the  saddest  consciousness  of 
my  life. 

"  That  I  may  possibly  by  this  letter  do  some- 
thing, however  late,  to  repair  this  wrong  is  my 
chief  consolation  on  leaving  the  world.  I  shall 
carry  with  me  into  whatever  life  I  go  an  inerad- 
icable resentment  against  the  man  who  was  Lord 
Hurdly,  and  I  leave  behind  me  the  most  ardent 
and  admiring  wishes  of  my  heart  for  the  man 
who,  when  you  read  this,  will  bear  the  noble 
name  and  title  which  his  predecessor,  if  the 
truth  about  him  could  be  known,  has  so  soiled 
with  treachery  in  the  furtherance  of  the  most 
indomitable  egotism  ever  known  in  mortal  man. 

"In  conclusion,  I  ask  of  your  ladyship,  as  I 
181 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

do  of  all  the  world,  such  gentle  judgment  as 
Christian  hearts  may  find  it  in  them,  to  accord  to 
one  whose  sins,  though  many,  were  of  weakness 
rather  than  malice,  and  who  did  the  evil  work 
of  a  malicious  man  because  he  had  not  strength 
to  brave  what  that  man  had  it  in  his  power  and 
purpose  to  do  to  him  in  punishment  of  the  re- 
sistance of  his  will. 

"  Your  ladyship's  repentant  and  unhappy  ser- 
vant, 

"FITZWILLIAM  CLARKE." 

Bettina,  in  her  breathless  reading  of  this  letter, 
had  forgotten  that  she  was  not  alone.  As  she 
finished  it  and  thrust  it  back  into  its  envelope  she 
glanced  toward  the  window,  and  there  saw  Mr. 
Cortlin's  figure  half  hid  by  the  heavy  curtains. 

"Mr.  Cortlin,"  she  said,  in  a  tone  which  sum- 
moned him  quickly  to  her  side,  "I  wish  to  ask 
if  you  or  any  other  person  have  any  knowledge 
of  the  contents  of  this  letter." 

"  I  can  only  answer  for  myself,  my  lady.  I  have 
not.  It  was  delivered  to  me  sealed  as  you  have 
found  it,  and  no  hint  of  its  purpose  told  me." 

"Had  you  a  personal  knowledge  and  acquaint- 
ance with  this  Mr.  Clarke  ?"  she  asked  next. 

"I  had,  my  lady.  He  was  in  the  confidence 
132 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

of  his  late  lordship,  who  intrusted  to  him  many 
of  his  private  affairs/* 

"  The  man  was  under  some  great  obligation 
to  Lord  Hurdly,  was  he  not  ?" 

"So  I  have  understood,  my  lady.  Formerly 
he  was  in  the  army,  and  I  have  heard  that  there 
was  some  dark  story  about  him.  I  have  even 
heard  cheating  at  cards  attributed  to  him,  and 
it  was  said  that  Lord  Hurdly's  influence  and 
friendship  were  all  that  saved  him.  The  story 
was  hushed  up,  but  he  resigned." 

Bettina  scarcely  followed  these  last  words.  A 
sense  of  sickening  confusion  made  her  head  spin 
round.  The  revelation  of  this  letter  was  too 
much  for  her.  The  past  possessed  her  like  a 
blighting  spell  that  she  could  never  hope  to 
shake  off,  and  the  knowledge  which  had  come  to 
her  through  this  letter  added  a  thousand-fold  to 
its  bitterness. 

As  to  the  future,  she  dared  not  try  to  see  a 
step  before  her  feet.  To  go  through  life  with 
the  consciousness  of  this  wrong  to  Horace  unex- 
plained was  a  thought  at  which  she  shuddered. 
Yet  to  explain  it  under  existing  circumstances 
was  impossible.  The  agitation  of  this  interview 
had  almost  overwhelmed  her.  Mr.  Cortlin  saw 
it,  and,  ringing  for  her  maid,  silently  withdrew. 
133 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

When  Nora  came  she  found  her  mistress  pale  as 
death,  and  very  nearly  lost  to  consciousness. 

After  that  interview,  so  significant  for  her  in 
so  many  ways,  Bettina  began  to  long  to  get  away 
— quite,  quite  away  into  another  world — before 
the  master  of  Kingdon  Hall  should  have  set  foot 
in  this  one.  She  was  doing  her  best  to  take  his 
place  and  act  for  him  in  such  matters  as  required 
immediate  attention  and  decision.  She  could 
not  refuse  to  do  this,  but  she  was  anxious  to  be 
gone,  to  be  quite  to  herself,  so  that  she  might 
the  better  look  life  in  the  face  and  see  what 
could  be  done  with  the  wretched  remnant  of  her 
existence.  She  had  given  up  all  idea  of  making 
her  residence  in  England,  and  there  was  no  other 
country  in  which  she  had  any  deep  interest,  save 
for  the  mournful  interest  that  attached  to  her 
mother's  grave. 

She  had  asked  the  lawyer  to  say  to  Lord 
Hurdly  that  she  would,  at  his  request,  delay  her 
departure  for  America  a  little  while,  but  that  she 
was  extremely  anxious  to  get  off  as  soon  as  it 
would  be  possible.  She  also  begged  that  he 
would  cable  when  he  was  coming,  as  soon  as  he 
could  make  his  plans  to  do  so. 

The  days  were  active  ones  for  Bettina  in  many 
new  and  serious  ways.  There  were  numerous  busi- 
134 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

ness  matters  which  she  had  to  be  consulted  about, 
and  these  gave  her  an  insight  into  the  affairs  of 
the  estate  which  showed  her  far  more  clearly 
than  ever  what  need  there  was  for  reform,  and 
revived  in  her  her  ardent  longing  to  have  a  hand 
in  these  reforms.  But  from  all  such  thoughts  as 
these  she  turned  away  heart-sickened. 

There  were  certain  visits  from  Lord  Hurdly's 
relations  which  had  to  be  received,  an  ordeal  that 
would  have  tried  Bettina  sorely  had  it  not  been 
that  she  made  these  the  occasion  for  the  investi- 
gation of  Horace  Spotswood's  character,  nature, 
actions,  interests,  habits,  etc.,  which  the  fateful 
letter  had  recommended  her  to  make.  She  had 
never  had  one  instant's  doubt  of  the  truth  of 
every  word  contained  in  that  letter,  but  it  was  a 
sort  of  bitter  pleasure  to  talk  to  these  people  and 
draw  forth  the  manifestations  of  their  delight  at 
having  Horace  for  the  head  of  the  family,  and 
their  confidence  that  this  fact  would  result  in 
pleasure  and  benefit  to  them  all.  From  their  ar- 
dent appreciation  of  him  Bettina  got  at  the  fact 
of  their  universal  dislike  for  the  Lord  Hurdly 
recently  laid  at  rest  with  his  ancestors. 

Yet  it  was  a  relief  when  all  the  guests  were 
gone  and  she  was  left  alone  to  the  mingled  sweet 
and  bitter  feelings  of  her  last  days  as  mistress  of 
135 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

Kiugdon  Hall.  The  worldly  spirit  in  Bettina,  di- 
minished as  it  was,  had  not  wholly  disappeared, 
and  never  would  as  long  as  she  was  young  and 
healthy  and  so  beautiful.  These  attributes  car- 
ried with  them  a  certain  love  of  display,  and  al- 
though it  was  a  trial  to  be  borne  with  dignity,  it 
was  still  a  trial  to  her  to  think  of  losing  forever 
the  splendid  place  which  she  had  for  a  short  year 
or  two  held  in  the  great  world. 


CHAPTER  XII 

BETTINA  was  writing  in  the  library  one 
morning  when  her  attention  was  arrested 
by  the  sound  of  an  approaching  footstep. 
The  next  moment  a  servant  annonnced, 

"  Lord  Hurdly." 

At  this  name  she  started  violently.  So  long 
accnstomed  to  associate  it  with  one  person,  she 
forgot  for  the  instant  that  another  bore  it  now. 
As  she  rose,  startled  and  expectant,  through  the 
portiere  held  back  by  the  servant  there  entered  a 
man  whose  sharp  dissimilarity  to  the  image  in 
her  mind  made  her  catch  her  breath. 

The  next  second  she  knew  that  it  was  Horace, 
and  realized  that  she  was  trembling  from  head  to 
foot.  The  breadth  of  the  room  was  between 
them,  for  he  had  paused  just  within  the  door, 
nodding  to  the  servant  to  withdraw. 

He  stood  there  an  instant  in  silence. 

Perhaps  she  was  no  more  startled  by  the  sur- 
prise which  the  sight  of  him  occasioned  than 
137 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

was  he  at  the  sight  of  her  ;  but  the  quality  of  the 
surprise  was  different.  It  was  her  beauty,  her 
so  far  more  than  recollected  beauty,  which  had 
arrested  him  and  held  him  spellbound.  He  had 
left  her  sick  with  grief  about  her  mother,  the 
color  faded  from  her  cheeks,  her  eyes  dulled  with 
weeping.  There  had  been,  moreover,  in  her  ex- 
pression an  apathy  which  his  ardent  words  had 
failed  to  do  away  with.  Besides  these  inherent 
things,  the  extrinsic  points  were  glaringly  a  con- 
trast to  the  present  ones.  Then  her  somewhat 
too  slight  figure  had  been  dressed  in  gowns  of  vil- 
lage make  and  fit,  and  her  lovely  hair  had  been 
carelessly  wound  up,  without  regard  to  fashion 
or  effect. 

Now  he  saw  confronting  him  a  woman  whom 
nature  had  endowed  with  a  rare  beauty,  and 
for  whom  art  had  also  done  its  best  in  the  mat- 
ter of  outward  adornment.  True,  she  was  clad 
in  plain  unrelieved  black  from  head  to  foot,  but 
no  other  costume  could  have  so  exquisitely  dis- 
played her  glowing  loveliness  of  coloring  or  the 
pure  correctness  of  her  outlines. 

During  the  few  seconds  in  which  they  stood 

looking  at  each  other  she  had  perceived  also  a 

great  change  in  him.     It  was  of  a  very  different 

character,  but  it  made  all  the  more  a  strong  ap- 

138 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

peal  to  her,  for  he  was  mysteriously  aged.  Not 
only  had  the  Eastern  sun  turned  to  bronze  the 
once  ruddy  hues  of  his  skin,  but  he  had  also  lost 
flesh,  and  his  hair  was  getting  streaks  of  gray  in 
it.  His  figure,  too,  was  sparer,  but  it  looked 
more  powerful  than  ever ;  and  still  more  apparent 
was  the  added  look  of  strength  in  the  familiar 
and  yet  subtly  altered  face. 

There  was  no  pause  long  enough  to  be  embar- 
rassing before  he  spoke. 

"  I  hope  you  will  excuse  me,"  he  said  (and, 
oh,  the  voice  was  altered  too,  unless  she  had 
forgotten  that  rich,  vibrating  tone  in  it !),  "for 
coming  upon  you  so  suddenly.  I  know  I  should 
have  given  warning,  but  I  had  what  I  think  a 
sufficient  reason  for  not  doing  so.  I  am  hoping 
earnestly  that  you  will  agree  with  me  when  you 
have  heard  it." 

"  Pray  sit  down,"  said  Bettina,  speaking  me- 
chanically, and  from  the  mere  instinct  of  ob- 
servance of  ordinary  forms.  She  had  no  sooner 
spoken  than  she  remembered  that  it  was  his  own 
house,  of  which  she  was  doing  the  honors  to  him. 
If  he  remembered  it  also,  he  gave  no  sign,  for  he 
took  the  chair  she  indicated,  with  the  conven- 
tional "  Thank  you"  of  an  ordinary  visitor. 

Bettina  also  had  sunk  into  her  chair,  and  sat 
139 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

quite  still,  with  her  white  hands  clasped  together 
on  the  dense  black  of  her  dress.  She  could  not 
speak,  yet  she  dreaded  lest,  in  the  silence,  he 
might  hear  the  beating  of  her  heart.  Its  soft 
thuds  were  plainly  audible  to  her,  and  all  the 
blood  from  her  cheeks  seemed  to  have  gone  there. 

"  In  any  event,  I  should  have  been  obliged  to 
come  to  England  soon,"  said  her  companion, 
"  but  I  should  have  put  it  off  longer  had  I  not 
felt  it  important  to  come  on  your  account/' 

Bettina's  eyes  expressed  a  questioning  surprise. 

"  On  my  account  ?"  she  said,  vaguely. 

"  Certainly,"  was  the  prompt,  decided  answer. 
"  The  only  responsibility  which  comes  near  to 
me  in  my  new  and  strange  position  is  that  of  pro- 
tecting the  honor  and  credit  of  the  name  I  have 
assumed.  These,  you  will  excuse  me  for  saying, 
have  been  seriously,  I  may  even  say  shamefully, 
disregarded  by  the  terms  of  the  late  Lord  Hurd- 
ly's  will." 

Bettiua's  eyes  had  still  that  vague  and  puzzled 
look.  She  had  not  the  least  comprehension  of 
what  he  meant.  Could  he  be  resenting  the  fact 
that,  so  far  as  it  was  practicable  for  him  to  do 
so,  his  cousin  had  disinherited  him  ?  But  no, 
that  was  impossible.  As  she  remained  silent  and 
expectant,  he  went  on : 

140 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"Since  lie  chose  to  disregard  the  duty  and 
dignity  of  his  position,  it  is  for  me,  who  must 
now  bear  his  name,  to  repair  that  wrong  so  far 
as  it  is  in  my  power  to  do  so.  It  is  for  that  ex- 
plicit purpose  that  I  am  now  come  to  speak  to 
you." 

Still  Bettina  looked  perplexed. 

"I  don't  understand  exactly  in  what  way  the 
will  has  displeased  you,"  she  said.  "  There  was 
a  great  deal  of  it  that  I  hardly  took  in.  But  in 
any  case  there  is  nothing  for  me  to  do.  As  you 
know,  my  services  have  not  been  asked,  and  cer- 
tainly there  is  no  place  for  them.  I  have  noth- 
ing whatever  to  do  with  the  executing  of  Lord 
Hurdly's  will.  Indeed,  my  plans  are  all  made  to 
return  to  America  immediately." 

"  I  cannot  be  surprised  at  your  decision,"  he 
said,  with  a  certain  resentment  in  his  voice  which 
she  did  not  understand.  "  Certainly  it  would  be 
natural  for  you  to  wish  to  shake  off  the  dust  of 
this  land  from  your  feet.  But  wherever  you  may 
choose  to  live  for  the  future,  it  is  my  duty  to 
see  that  you  live  as  becomes  the  widow  of  Lord 
Hurdly,  and  it  is  for  this  purpose  that  I  have 
hastened  to  get  here  before  you  should  be  gone." 

All  was  now  clear,  and  with  the  illumination 
which  had  come  to  her  from  these  words  of  his 
141 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

the  color  flooded  her  pale  cheeks.  Her  first  sen- 
sation was  of  keenly  wounded  pride. 

"  Yon  might  have  spared  yourself  such  haste/' 
she  said.  "If  you  had  taken  the  slight  trouble 
to  write  to  me,  I  could  have  saved  you  the  long 
and  hurried  journey.  So  far  from  wishing  to 
have  more  money  than  what  I  am  legally  entitled 
to,  it  is  my  purpose  and  decision  to  take  nothing. 
I  have  of  my  own  enough  to  live  upon  in  the 
simple  way  in  which  I  shall  live  for  the  future. 
Did  you  think  so  ill  of  me  as  to  suppose  that  I 
would  wish  to  grasp  at  more  than  my  husband 
saw  fit  to  leave  me  —  or  to  take  money  at  your 
hands  ?" 

It  was  her  instinct  of  pride  which  had  caused 
her  to  use  the  words  "  my  husband,"  which  an- 
other instinct  at  the  same  moment  urged  her  to 
repudiate.  But  pride  was  now  the  uppermost 
feeling  of  her  heart,  and  it  supplied  her  with  a 
sudden  and  sufficient  strength  for  this  hour's 
need. 

"  This  is  in  no  sense  a  question  between  you 
and  your  late  husband,"  said  Horace.  (Was 
there  not  in  him  also  a  certain  hesitation  at  that 
word,  and  did  not  the  same  feeling  as  in  her 
compel  him  to  its  use  ?)  "  Nor  is  it  a  question 
between  you  and  me.  The  obviously  simple  issue 
142 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

is  what  propriety  demands  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  the  widow  of  Lord  Hardly  is  provided 
for.  It  belongs  to  my  own  sense  of  the  dignity  of 
my  position  that  the  late  Lord  Hurdly's  widow 
should  be  situated  as  becomes  her  name  and  title, 
and  I  am  determined  to  see  that  this  is  done." 

"  Determined,"  she  said,  a  certain  defiance  in 
her  quiet  tone,  "  is  not  the  word  for  this  case. 
You  may  determine  as  you  choose,  but  what  will 
it  avail  if  I  determine  not  to  touch  a  penny  be- 
longing to  either  the  late  or  the  present  Lord 
Hurdly  ?  Yon  are  very  careful  of  the  dignity 
of  your  position.  I  must  also  look  to  mine, 
which  you  seem  strangely  to  have  forgotten." 

His  expression  showed  her  plainly  that  these 
words  of  hers  had  cut  deep  into  his  conscious- 
ness. A  swift  compunction  seized  her  heart,  but 
her  pride  was  still  in  the  supremacy,  and  enabled 
her  to  stifle  the  feeling. 

"  I  have  not  forgotten  it,"  he  said.  "  It  is  be- 
cause I  have  been  mindful  of  the  dignity  of  your 
position  that  I  have  urged  this  thing  upon  you. 
The  conditions  of  the  will  need  not  be  generally 
known  if  you  will  accept  the  right  and  proper 
income,  which  I  wish,  above  all  things,  to  see  you 
have.  Can  you  not  believe  me  sincere  in  my  de- 
sire to  remove  the  indignity  put  upon  you  by  a 
143 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

member  of  my  family,  and  the  bearer  before  me 
of  a  name  and  position  of  which  it  has  now  be- 
come my  duty  to  maintain  the  credit  ?  And  can 
you  not  believe  me  just  enough  and  kind  enough 
to  wish  to  see  this  done  for  your  sake  as  well  as 
for  my  own  ?" 

Bettina's  face  continued  proudly  hard.  If  the 
gentleness  of  her  companion's  expression,  the 
kindness  of  his  manner,  the  delicate  respect  of 
his  tones,  made  any  appeal  to  her  woman's  heart, 
the  all-potency  of  her  pride  enabled  her  to  con- 
ceal it.  But  the  struggle  between  the  two  feel- 
ings at  war  within  her  made  a  desperate  demand 
upon  her  strength.  She  felt  that  she  would  do 
well  to  put  an  end  to  this  interview  as  soon  as 
practicable.  With  this  purpose  she  said,  abruptly : 

"I  am  willing  to  do  full  justice  to  your  mo- 
tives, but  they  cannot  affect  my  action.  My 
mind  is  quite  made  up.  I  shall  return  to  Amer- 
ica at  once,  and  there  the  credit  of  Lord  Hurdly's 
name  will  not  suffer  any  hurt,  since  I  shall  be 
practically  out  of  the  world.  Certainly  I  shall 
be  forever  removed  from  the  world  in  which  his 
life  will  be  spent.  Do  not  think  that  I  shall  re- 
gret it.  I  shall  not.  My  experience  of  your  world 
has  shown  me  that  the  mere  possession  of  money, 
rank,  position,  influence,  is  powerless  to  bring 
144 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

happiness.  I  thought  once  that  if  I  should  come 
to  have  these  I  could  get  pleasure  and  satisfac- 
tion from  them,  but  I  was  wrong.  My  nature 
inherently  loved  importance  and  display,  but  I 
mistook  the  unessential  for  the  essential.  If  I 
had  had  all  these  external  things,  together  with 
the  satisfaction  of  the  inward  needs,  they  might 
have  made  me  happy.  In  themselves  I  have 
proved  them  to  be  worthless." 

She  was  compelled  to  say  these  words.  The 
intimate  knowledge  of  the  character  of  her  hus- 
band which  had  come  to  her  after  marriage  made 
her  long  that  Horace  should  know  that  had  she 
really  comprehended  the  man  as  he  perhaps  had 
known  him  all  the  while,  she  never  could  have 
become  his  wife.  It  was  impossible  for  her  to 
tell  him  this,  but  she  caught  eagerly  at  her  pres- 
ent opportunity  of  letting  him  know  that  she 
had  had  no  duty  toward  her  late  husband  beyond 
the  mere  formal  obligation  of  her  wifehood.  She 
could  not  bear  Horace  to  think  that  she  had 
loved  him.  Even  now,  under  the  softening  in- 
fluence that  death  imparts,  that  thought  was 
intolerable  to  her.  This  was  quite  aside  from 
his  treatment  of  her  in  his  will,  which,  indeed, 
was  strangely  little  to  her.  It  was  the  memory 
of  the  crafty  and  common  nature  under  that 
K  145 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

polished  exterior  that  made  her  recoil  from  the 
thought  of  him  now. 

If  this  feeling  was  strengthened  by  the  con- 
trast of  the  personality  now  present  to  her  gaze, 
how  could  she  be  blamed  ?  Surely  the  man  who 
stood  before  her  might  have  seemed  to  answer 
any  woman's  heart's  desire  as  lover,  companion, 
friend.  How  her  conscience  smote  her  for  the 
doubts  she  had  once  had  of  him  !  "When  she  re- 
membered whose  treachery  it  was  that  had  cre- 
ated these  doubts,  there  was  hate  in  her  heart. 

She  did  not  wish  him  to  see  the  expression  of 
this  feeling  in  her  face,  so  she  rose  abruptly  and 
turned  from  him.  As  if  he  understood  her,  he 
rose  also,  and  crossed  the  room  to  the  desk  at 
which  she  had  been  seated  on  his  entrance. 

Here  were  heaped  papers  and  memoranda  con- 
nected with  the  Kingdon  Hall  estates.  Evident- 
ly he  recognized  their  character,  for  he  said : 

"At  least  you  have  not  refused  to  give  me  the 
help  that  I  asked.  I've  been  talking  to  Kirke, 
and  he  tells  me  you  have  been  taking  an  inter- 
est in  the  affairs  of  the  tenants.  Thank  you  for 
this." 

In  an  instant  the  bitterness  in  Bettina's  heart 
was  changed  into  a  new  and  softer  emotion.  She 
saw  the  opportunity  of  effecting  now  what  she 
146 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

had  been  so  powerless  to  effect  in  the  past.  For- 
getting everything  else,  she  came  quickly  to  his 
side  and  took  up  one  of  the  papers.  This  was 
in  her  own  handwriting,  and  was  a  memorandum 
of  some  length.  She  held  it  away  from  him  a 
moment,  her  face  flushing,  and  a  look  of  hesita- 
tion showing  on  it. 

"  I  never  intended  that  you  should  see  this," 
she  said.  "  I  began  it  long  ago,  and  had  to  put 
it  by ;  but  recently  I  have  taken  it  up  again, 
without  really  knowing  why,  except  that  all  my 
whole  heart  was  in  it." 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked.  "  I  beg  you  to  let 
me  see  it." 

"  No,"  she  said.  "  It  is  not  my  affair,  and  I 
must  remember  that.  It  concerns  some  most 
deplorable  facts  which  I  have  discovered  con- 
cerning the  management  of  the  Kingdon  Hall 
estates,  but — " 

"  Then  it  is  my  affair,"  he  interrupted  her  ; 
"and  since  you  know  what  these  abuses  are,  and 
have  looked  into  them,  you  surely  will  not  de- 
prive me  of  the  help  that  you  could  give.  I  ask 
it  as  a  favor." 

Still  Bettina  hesitated,  but  he  could  see  that 
she  was  longing  to  comply.     He  could  imagine, 
also,  what  it  was  that  held  her  back. 
147 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"  Not  as  a  favor  to  me,"  he  hastened  to  add  ; 
"I  appeal  to  you  in  the  name  of  these  poor  ten- 
ants, who  have  been  so  long  neglected  and  abused. 
This  is  no  new  thing  to  me.  I  have  seen  it  go- 
ing on  from  the  time  I  was  a  boy  here,  and  I  can 
truly  say  that  almost  the  only  pleasure  that  I 
have  looked  forward  to  in  succeeding  to  the  es- 
tates has  been  the  righting  of  these  wrongs. 
Surely  yon  will  not  refuse  to  help  me  to  do 
this." 

For  answer,  Bettina  turned  upon  him  a  pair 
of  ardent  eyes  that  swam  with  tears. 

"  Oh,  are  you  really  going  to  do  this  blessed, 
glorious  thing  ?"  she  said.  She  had  forgotten 
herself  for  the  moment,  and  was  thinking  only 
of  them — the  wretched  beings  whose  wrongs  had 
so  long  oppressed  her,  and  who,  it  seemed,  were 
to  have  justice  and  care  and  kindness  at  last. 
"You  don't  know  how  hideous  the  condition  of 
these  poor  creatures  is,  and  how  impossible  it 
has  been  for  me  to  do  anything  in  the  past.  To 
think  there  is  some  one  who  will  let  me  tell 
about  it  at  last  and  give  the  help  that  is  so 
needed  !  But  you  can  do  nothing  with  such  a 
steward  as  Kirke.  His  heart  is  as  cold  as  ice." 

"  Kirke  shall  go  at  once.  I  have  long  believed 
that  he  was  unworthy  of  the  position  he  holds. 
148 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

If  you  will  give  me  the  benefit  of  your  investiga- 
tion and  insight  into  the  situation  you  will  save 
me  much  trouble,  and  you  can  also  feel  that 
these  poor  people  will  be  that  much  nearer  to 
having  their  distress  relieved." 

At  these  prompt,  determined  words  her  heart 
swelled,  and  again  tears  brimmed  her  eyes. 

"  Oh,  thank  God  that  you  will  help  them  !" 
she  said.  "Now  that  I  am  sure  of  that,  I  can  go 
away  contented.  It  would  have  broken  my  heart 
to  leave  them  so — yet  I  had  not  dared  to  hope 
that  I  could  do  anything.  Yon  have  no  idea  of 
the  extent  of  it.  It  will  take  a  great  deal  of 
money  to  give  them  new  houses,  proper  sanitary 
conditions,  and  all  the  things  they  need." 

"Never  mind  that — only  tell  me  what  to  do." 

"But  can  you  do  it  ?  I  know  how  compara- 
tively limited  you  are  as  to  money." 

"  Comparatively  only,"  he  said,  reassuringly. 
"  I  have  much  less  than  my  predecessor  had,  but 
fortunately  I  have  little  pride  and  simple  tastes. 
I  can  let  the  place  in  Leicestershire,  where  the 
hunting  is  good,  and  I  can  also  lease  the  town 
house  if  necessary.  Pray  consider  that  the  ques- 
tion of  money  is  disposed  of.  I  assure  you  that 
does  not  enter  into  it." 

Thus  invited,  Bettina  sat  down  before  the  desk, 
149 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

while  he  took  a  seat  near  by,  and  with  the  papers 
before  her  she  went  fully  into  the  questions  at  is- 
sue, showing  a  grasp  of  the  situation^which  soon 
testified  to  her  companion  that  she  had  studied 
it  to  some  purpose.  All  the  changes  which  she 
recommended  were  approved,  but  more  than  once 
his  attention  was  diverted  from  the  purpose  of 
the  future  to  an  indignant  contempt  for  the  de- 
linquencies of  the  past.  It  was  hard  for  him  to 
constrain  himself  to  silence  as  to  this,  but  Bettina 
thanked  him  in  her  heart  for  the  successful  effort 
which  he  made.  She  was  too  abject  in  her  sense 
of  compunction  for  her  own  past  to  feel  inclined 
to  severe  judgment  of  another,  and  in  her  joy 
that  these  cherished  plans  of  hers  were  to  be  im- 
mediately realized  she  was  able  to  put  by  for  the 
moment  more  personal  trouble.  She  spoke  with 
a  fervor  that  made  her  beautiful  face  wellnigh 
adorable  in  its  kind  compassion,  and  when  she 
would  describe  the  wrongs  and  hardships  of  these 
poor  simple  folk  her  eyes  at  times  would  fill  with 
tears  of  pity  and  her  voice  would  tremble. 

She  knew  it  not,  but  in  this  hour  she  was  mak- 
ing a  new  revelation  of  herself  to  Horace,  which 
answered  to  the  need  of  his  maturer  nature  as 
marvellously  as  the  Bettina  of  old  had  satisfied 
the  needs  of  the  ardent  young  fellow  that  he  was 
150 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

then.  If  he  remembered  that  Bettina  only  as 
being  beautiful  and  beloved,  he  saw  in  this  one  a 
far  nobler  and  more  perfect  beauty,  as  he  recog- 
nized in  her  qualities  more  worthy  to  command 
love. 

Here  they  were  alone  together,  in  a  mood  of 
extraordinary  openness  and  sincerity,  for  they 
were  thinking  the  same  thoughts  of  helpfulness 
to  others,  and  there  was  not  an  atom  of  the  em- 
barrassment of  their  personal  relationship  to  come 
between  them  now.  It  was  not  singular,  there- 
fore, that  he,  for  his  part,  should  have  longed  to 
speak  to  her,  heart  to  heart,  of  that  mysterious 
thing  which  had  divided  them,  and  to  tell  her 
that,  in  spite  of  all  —  in  spite  of  facts  that  had 
been  flaunted  before  his  eyes  in  society,  in  the 
public  prints,  and  everywhere  —  he  had  never 
quite  succeeded  in  stilling  a  small  voice  in  his 
soul  which  had  continued  to  declare  that  the 
young  girl  to  whom  he  had  so  passionately  given 
his  love  was  less  fickle  and  unfaithful  than  these 
facts  had  shown  her  to  be.  Now,  more  than 
ever,  this  insistent  voice  repeated  itself.  How 
he  longed  to  ask  her  the  simple  question  !  But 
then  came  common -sense,  and  demanded,  What 
question  ?  Was  there  any  question  which  he 
could  ask  her  to  which  the  fact  and  conditions 
151 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

of  her  marriage  to  Lord  Hurdly  were  not  a  final 
answer  ? 

As  for  Bettina,  she  had  also  her  longings  to 
take  advantage  of  that  interview,  when  they 
were  speaking  together  in  such  friendly  con- 
verse, by  telling  him  of  the  letter  of  confession 
which  she  had  received,  bnt  pride  here  took  the 
place  of  common-sense,  and  bade  her  to  be  silent. 

They  had  gone  over  all  the  papers  together 
now.  There  was  no  longer  any  excuse  for  lin- 
gering. He  had  given  and  repeated  his  assur- 
ances that  all  these  abuses  which  she  so  lamented 
should  be  remedied,  and  she  had  thanked  him 
again  and  again.  Both  felt  that  the  time  to  part 
had  come.  And  yet  both  felt  an  impulse  to 
postpone  it.  It  was  her  consciousness  of  this 
feeling  which  now  made  Bettina  act.  There  was 
an  influence  from  his  very  presence  which 
alarmed  her. 

"  I  must  go  now,"  she  said,  her  voice  a  shade 
unsteady. 

"  No,  it  is  I  who  am  going/'  was  the  answer. 
"  I  return  at  once  to  London,  as  I  have  neither 
the  right  nor  the  desire  to  intrude  upon  your 
privacy.  I  wish  to  say,  however,  that  I  do  not 
accept  your  decision  as  to  your  future  income. 
I  beg  you  to  give  my  wish,  my  earnest  request, 
152 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

your  consideration.  I  shall  write  to  you.  Per- 
haps I  can  put  the  case  more  clearly  so.  At  all 
events,  I  shall  try/' 

Bettina  shook  her  head. 

"  You  will  simply  waste  your  time/'  she  said. 
"  Nothing  can  change  me  from  my  purpose  of 
going  at  once  to  America,  with  no  income  but 
my  own  little  inheritance,  and  taking  up  my  old 
life  there." 

The  word  inheritance  had  suggested  to  both 
of  them  the  thought  of  her  mother.  They  saw 
the  consciousness  in  each  other's  eyes. 

"  How  can  you  take  up  your  old  life  there," 
he  said,  "  when  the  presence  which  made  its  in- 
terest, its  very  atmosphere,  is  gone  ?  It  is 
enough  to  kill  you — and  you  will  not  have 
money  to  live  elsewhere." 

The  keen  solicitude  in  voice  and  eyes  could 
not  be  mistaken.  It  was  evident  that  he  cared 
for  what  she  might  suffer — what  might  nltimate- 
ly  become  of  her.  The  thought  was  rapture  to 
her  starved  and  lonely  heart. 

"  I  must  bear  it,"  she  said,  trying  to  control 
her  voice  as  well  as  her  face.  "  Life  will  be  no 
harder  to  me  there  than  elsewhere." 

"  You  are  wrong.  In  no  other  spot  on  earth 
will  the  loss  of  your  mother  so  oppress  you.  I 
153 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

know  what  that  has  been  to  yon,  by  my  con- 
sciousness of  what  that  possession  was.  And 
remember  one  thing,  which  gives  me  some  right 
to  speak  to  you  as  I  am  doing  now — I  loved  your 
mother  and  she  also  loved  me." 

At  these  words  and  the  tones  that  accom- 
panied them  Bettina's  strength  gave  way.  She 
dropped  back  in  the  seat  from  which  she  had 
risen,  and,  hiding  her  face  in  her  hands,  burst 
into  tears. 

She  could  not  see  the  effect  of  her  weeping  on 
the  man,  who  still  stood  motionless  and  erect 
before  her.  She  did  not  know  that  the  tears 
sprang  into  his  eyes  also,  and  that  the  whispered 
utterance  of  her  name  was  on  his  lips. 

He  heard  it,  however,  though  she  did  not,  and 
the  knowledge  that  he  had  lost  control  of  him- 
self made  him  turn  away  and  walk  to  the  other 
end  of  the  room. 

"When  he  had  stood  there  a  few  seconds,  with 
his  back  turned,  he  heard  her  voice,  somewhat 
shaken,  though  with  the  accent  of  recovered 
self-possession,  saying,  in  a  tone  of  summons, 

"LordHurdly— " 

An  inward  revolt  sprung  up  at  being  so  ad- 
dressed by  her.  The  name  had  only  sinister  as- 
sociations for  him  in  any  case,  but  to  hear  it 
154 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

from  Bettina's  lips  filled  him  with  a  sort  of 
rage. 

"Lord  Hurdly,"  she  said  again,  and  this  time 
her  voice  had  gained  in  steadiness,  until  it 
sounded  mechanical  and  hard. 

"  I  wish  to  express  to  you/'  she  said,  when  he 
had  drawn  a  little  nearer,  "my  thanks  for  your 
kind  'intentions  concerning  me.  I  can  only  re- 
peat, however,  that  my  decision  is  quite  fixed, 
and  that  I  shall  carry  out  the  plans  I  have  made 
known  to  you.  Do  not  urge  me  further.  Do 
not  write  to  me.  It  will  be  useless.  Let  me  go 
back  to  the  life  from  which  you  never  should 
have  taken  me.  You  were  mistaken  in  me  from 
the  first,  and  I  have  been  nothing  but  a  trouble 
and  a  hinderance  to  you.  I  am  sorry.  I  ask  you 
to  forget  it  all  if  you  can.  But,  above  all  things, 
I  ask,  if  you  would  really  help  me  and  serve  me 
in  the  one  way  in  which  I  can  be  helped  by  you, 
that  you  will  consider  that  the  present  moment 
closes  our  intercourse  in  every  way,  and  will 
show  me  the  respect,  little  as  I  deserve  it,  of 
proving  to  me  that  in  this  one  instance,  at  least, 
you  believe  me  capable  of  acting  with  rectitude 
and  dignity,  and  of  meaning  what  I  say." 

He  did  not  answer  her.  He  only  stood  pro- 
foundly still  and  looked  at  her.  That  gaze,  the 
155 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

searching,  scrutinizing  power  of  it,  made  her 
afraid.  Trembling  with  terror  of  what  she  might 
reveal  in  answer  to  it,  she  turned  suddenly  and 
vanished  through  a  door  behind  her,  leaving  him 
standing  there,  and  with  a  consciousness  that  his 
keen  eyes  were  on  her  yet,  reading  what  she  so 
ardently  desired  to  conceal. 

Once  in  her  own  room,  she  locked  the  door, 
and  then  ran  swiftly  to  the  window,  which  gave 
her  a  view  of  the  terrace  below. 

There  she  saw  waiting  a  hired  trap,  with  its 
driver  drowsing  in  the  sunlight.  As  she  looked, 
she  saw  the  man  from  whom  she  had  just  part- 
ed come  rather  slowly  down  the  steps  and  get 
into  the  shabby  conveyance.  His  hat-brim  hid 
the  upper  part  of  his  face,  but  she  saw  the 
stern  set  of  his  jaw,  the  bronzed  pallor  of  his 
cheeks. 

She  watched  the  little  trap  until  it  had  disap- 
peared behind  some  great  oaks,  which  were  one 
of  the  glories  of  Kingdon  Hall.  In  a  strange  way 
she  had  come  to  love  this  stately  old  place,  and 
it  gave  her  a  pang  to  feel  that  she  was  about  to 
look  her  last  on  it.  This  feeling,  however,  was 
subordinated  to  another,  which  literally  tore  her 
heart ;  this  was  that,  by  the  use  of  every  means 
of  thought  and  action  within  her  power,  she  had 
156 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

quite  determined  never  to  run  the  risk  of  seeing 
this  man  again. 

She  knew  that  her  only  safety  lay  in  flight, 
and  she  set  to  work  at  once  to  make  her  prepara- 
tions to  fly. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

IN  the  days  that  followed,  Bettina's  only  re- 
source was  in  bodily  activity.  She  wrote 
at  once  and  took  her  passage  on  a  steamer 
to  sail  for  America  one  week  from  the  day  of 
Horace's  visit.  Then,  with  Nora's  help,  she  set 
to  work  to  do  her  packing.  The  French  maid 
was  sent  away,  and  her  lady  refused  all  other 
offers  of  service. 

Her  first  impulse  had  been  to  leave  all  her 
wardrobe  and  personal  belongings  behind  her, 
and  this  she  would  undoubtedly  have  done  but 
for  the  counteracting  instinct  to  remove  from 
any  possibility  of  the  sight  of  the  future  occu- 
pant of  these  apartments  any  smallest  reminder 
of  the  late  Lady  Hurdly.  No  doubt  another 
bearer  of  that  name  would  soon  be  installed  in 
them,  and  to  her  the  least  reminder  of  the  beau- 
tiful Bettina  who  had  once  so  strangely  come  to 
it  would  naturally  be  offensive. 

With  this  thought  in  her  mind,  she  eagerly 
158 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

helped  Nora  to  collect  and  pack  away  every 
trace  of  her  ever  having  lived  here.  One  record 
of  the  fact  it  was  out  of  her  power  to  remove,  and 
this  was  the  full-length  portrait  of  her,  in  all 
the  state  and  magnificence  of  her  prond  position, 
which  hung  in  the  picture-gallery,  and  which 
Horace  had  never  seen.  Neither  had  he  ever 
seen  her  in  such  a  guise,  and,  in  spite  of  her, 
there  was  a  certain  exultation  in  her  breast  when 
she  imagined  the  moment  of  his  first  beholding 
it.  Another  moment,  equally  charged  with  min- 
gled pride  and  pain,  was  the  anticipation  of  the 
time  when  the  next  bearer  of  the  name  and  title 
should  come  to  have  her  portrait  hung  there. 
No  Lady  Hurdly  who  had  come  before  could 
bear  the  comparison  with  her,  and  she  knew  it. 
"Was  it  not,  therefore,  reasonable  to  believe  that 
those  who  followed  her  might  suffer  as  much  by 
the  contrast? 

But  these  feelings  of  satisfaction  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  her  appropriateness  to  such  a  set- 
ting as  Kingdon  Hall  were  only  momentary,  and 
many  of  those  busy  hours  of  work  were  inter- 
spersed with  lonely  fits  of  weeping,  when  even 
Nora  was  excluded  from  her  mistress's  room. 
The  good  creature,  who  had  never  been  burdened 
with  mentality,  went  steadily  on  with  her  work 
159 


and  asked  no  questions  ;  yet  it  was  not  unknown 
to  her  that  Bettina's  unhappiness  depended  not 
altogether  upon  the  fact  of  her  recent  widow- 
hood, or  even  upon  the  disastrous  consequences 
of  it  in  her  future  life. 

Two  or  three  times  Nora  had  brought  to  her 
mistress  letters  in  a  handwriting  which  she  had 
not  forgotten,  and  although  she  made  no  sign 
of  suspicion,  she  did  connect  these  letters  with 
Bettina's  unhappiness. 

Certainly  it  was  no  wonder  that  such  letters 
as  she  received  from  Horace  now  should  have  so 
desperately  sad  an  influence  on  her.  In  them 
he  begged,  argued,  pleaded  with  her  to  grant 
him  this  one  request,  even  using  her  mother's 
name  to  touch  and  change  her.  Indeed,  there 
was  a  tone  in  these  letters  that  she  could  scarcely 
understand.  Keenly  conscious  as  she  was  of  the 
injustice  of  which  she  had  been  guilty  toward  him, 
it  seemed  incredible  that  he  could  so  ignore  it  as 
to  manifest  any  personal  interest  in  her  on  her  own 
account.  She  even  felt  a  certain  regret  that  he 
could  so  lose  sight  of  this  flagrant  fact.  It  had 
come  to  be  a  vital  need  to  her  to  have  the  ideal 
of  Horace  in  her  life.  It  was  now  almost  more 
essential  to  her  to  have  something  to  admire 
than  something  to  love.  Under  these  conditions 
160 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

she  felt  a  certain  sense  of  disappointment  in  him, 
that  he  could  seem  to  forget  the  deep  wrong  she 
had  done  him.  And  yet,  in  utter  contradiction 
to  this  feeling,  his  kind  ignoring  of  it  soothed 
her  tortured  heart. 

She  sent  no  answer  to  these  letters.  She  even 
hoped  that  by  taking  this  course  she  might  make 
the  impression  on  him  that  she  did  not  read  them. 
This  was  her  design  and  her  consolation,  even 
while  she  read  and  re-read  them  with  a  devour- 
ing eagerness.  She  never  paused  to  ask  herself 
why  this  was.  She  avoided  any  investigation 
into  her  feeling  for  Horace.  It  was  enough  that, 
in  spite  of  all  the  self-accusation  and  self-abase- 
ment which  she  carried  in  her  heart,  this  being 
who  knew  the  very  worst  of  her  could  still  think 
her  worthy  of  kindness  and  respect.  When  she 
thought  of  this  she  felt  as  if  she  could  go  on  her 
knees  to  him. 

One  fear  was  constantly  before  her  mind,  and 
that  was  that  he  might  seek  a  personal  interview 
with  her  again.  She  dared  not  trust  herself  to 
this,  instinctively  as  she  longed  for  it.  It  was, 
therefore,  with  positive  terror  in  her  breast  that 
she  heard  one  morning  from  Nora  that  Lord 
Hurdly  was  in  the  house,  having  come  down  by 
train  from  London. 

L  161 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"  I  cannot  see  him — I  will  not !"  she  cried,  in 
an  impassioned  protest,  which  only  Nora  could 
have  seen  her  portray. 

"  He  did  not  ask  to  see  you/'  said  Nora.  "  I 
met  him  in  the  hall,  and  he  told  me  to  say  to 
you  that  he  required  some  papers  which  were  in 
the  library,  and  that  he  would,  with  your  per- 
mission, like  the  use  of  the  room  for  a  few  hours. 
He  told  me  to  say  that  he  had  had  luncheon,  and 
would  not  disturb  you  in  any  way." 

At  these  words  Bettina  felt  a  sinking  of  the 
heart,  which  was  her  first  consciousness  of  the 
sudden  hope  she  had  been  entertaining.  This 
made  her  reproach  herself  angrily  for  such  weak- 
ness and  want  of  pride,  and  with  this  feeling  in 
her  heart,  she  said,  abruptly, 

"  There  is  no  answer  to  Lord  Hnrdly's  mes- 
sage." 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Nora,  hesitatingly, 
"but  I  am  quite  sure  he  is  expecting  an  answer." 

"  I  say  there  is  no  answer,"  Bettina  repeated, 
with  a  sudden  sternness.  "  Lord  Hurdly  is  in  his 
own  house.  He  can  come  and  go  as  he  chooses. 
His  asking  permission  of  me  is  a  mere  farce." 

Nora  ventured  to  say  no  more,  and  withdrew 
in  silence,  leaving  her  mistress  alone  with  the 
consciousness  that  Horace  was  in  the  very  house 
162 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

with  her,  and  that  at  any  moment  she  might,  if 
she  chose,  go  to  him  and  tell  him  all  the  truth. 

And  why  did  she  not  ?  That  old  feeling  be- 
tween them  was  quite  dead.  She  had  a  right  to 
clear  herself  from  a  condemnation  which  she  did 
not  deserve — a  right,  at  least,  to  make  known  the 
palliating  circumstances  in  the  case.  In  any 
other  conceivable  instance  she  would  not  have 
hesitated  to  do  so.  "What  was  it,  then,  which 
made  it  so  impossible  in  this  instance  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  leaped  up  in  her 
heart,  and  so  struggled  for  recognition  that  she 
had  an  instinct  to  run  away  from  herself  that 
she  might  not  have  to  face  it.  She  wanted  to 
close  her  eyes,  so  that  she  might  shut  out  the 
truth  that  was  before  her  mental  vision,  and  to 
put  her  hands  over  her  ears,  that  she  might  not 
hoar  the  voice  that  clamored  to  her  heart. 

Surely  a  part  of  this  feeling  was  the  compunc- 
tion which  she  felt  for  having  wronged  him. 
That  she  might  openly  acknowledge.  But  that 
was  not  all.  She  was  aware  of  something  more 
in  her,  own  heart.  Even  that  she  might  have 
stifled,  and,  supported  by  her  pride,  might  have 
concisely  told  him  of  the  error  under  which  she 
had  acted.  But  there  was  still  another  thing 
that  entered  in.  This  was  a  faint,  delicious, 
163 


disturbing,  unacknowledged  to  her  own  heart, 
suspicion  about  Horace  himself.  He  had  said 
nothing  to  warrant  her  in  the  belief  that  his 
anxiety  about  her  future  was  anything  more 
than  the  satisfaction  of  his  own  self-respect,  but 
her  heart  had  said  things  which  she  trembled  to 
hear,  and  there  was  a  certain  evidence  of  her 
eyes.  In  leaving  her  the  other  day — or  rather  at 
the  moment  of  her  hurried  leaving  of  him — he 
had  looked  at  her  strangely. 

That  look  had  lingered  in  her  consciousness, 
and  without  effort  she  could  recall  it  now.  In 
doing  so  her  cheeks  flushed,  her  heart  beat 
quicker.  She  felt  tempted  to  woo  the  sweet  sen- 
sation, and  by  every  effort  of  imagination  to 
quicken  it  into  keener  life,  but  the  seductive- 
ness of  this  temptation  terrified  her. 

She  started  from  her  seat  and  looked  about 
her.  How  long  had  she  sat  there  musing — 
dreaming  dreams  which  every  instinct  of  woman- 
ly pride  compelled  her  to  renounce  ?  She  won- 
dered if  he  had  gone.  Once  more  came  that 
mingled  hope  and  fear  that  he  might  seek  an  in- 
terview with  her  before  leaving.  The  hope  was 
stronger  than  ever,  and  for  that  reason  the  fear 
was  stronger  too. 

A  footstep  in  the  hall  arrested  her  attention, 
164 


and  she  stood  palpitating,  with  her  hand  npon 
her  heart.  It  passed,  leaving  only  silence;  but 
it  had  been  a  useful  warning  to  her.  Suppose, 
in  her  present  mood,  Horace  should  make  his 
way  to  her  sitting-room  and  knock  for  admit- 
tance. "Would  she — could  she — send  him  away, 
with  her  heart  crying  out  for  the  relief  of  speech 
and  confession  to  him  as  it  was  doing  now  ? 

With  a  hurried  impulse  she  caught  up  a  light 
wrap  of  dense  black  material,  and  passed  rapidly 
into  the  hall.  Her  impulse  was  to  go  out  of 
doors,  to  get  away  from  the  house  until  he  should 
have  left  it ;  but  in  order  to  do  this  from  her 
apartments,  she  must  pass  by  the  library,  and 
this  she  feared  to  do.  So  she  changed  her  pur- 
pose, and  stepping  softly  that  no  one  might  hear 
her,  she  entered  the  long  picture-gallery,  and 
closed  the  door  behind  her  with  great  care  to 
make  no  noise.  Many  of  the  blinds  were  closed, 
but  down  at  the  far  end  where  her  picture  hung 
there  was  some  light,  and  with  an  impulsive 
desire  to  look  at  this  picture,  with  a  view  to  the 
impression  that  it  might  make  on  Horace  when 
he  should  see  it,  she  glided  noiselessly  down  the 
room  toward  it. 

The  full-length  portraits  to  right  and  left  of 
her  loomed  vaguely  through  the  half-light.  She 
165 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

glanced  at  each  one  as  she  passed  slowly  along, 
with  the  feeling  that  she  was  taking  leave  of 
them  forever.  In  this  way  her  gaze  had  heen 
diverted  from  the  direction  of  her  own  portrait, 
and  she  was  within  a  few  yards  of  it  when,  look- 
ing straight  ahead  of  her,  she  saw  between  the 
picture  and  herself  the  figure  of  a  man. 

He  stood  as  still  as  any  canvas  on  the  wall, 
and  gazed  upward  to  the  face  before  him.  Bet- 
tina,  as  startled  as  if  she  had  seen  a  ghost  in  this 
dim-lighted  room,  stood  equally  still  behind  him, 
her  hand  over  her  parted  lips,  as  if  to  stifle  back 
the  cry  that  rose. 

And  still  he  stood  and  gazed  and  gazed,  while 
she,  as  if  petrified,  stood  there  behind  him,  for 
moments  that  seemed  to  her  endless. 

Presently  she  saw  his  shoulders  raised  by  the 
inhalation  of  a  deep-drawn  breath,  which  escaped 
him  in  an  audible  sigh.  The  sound  recalled  her. 
Turning  with  a  wild  instinct  of  escape,  she  fled 
down  the  long  room,  her  black  cape  streaming 
behind  her,  and  vanished  in  the  shadows  out  of 
which  she  had  emerged. 

Somehow,  she  never  knew  how,  she  let  herself 

out  into  the  hall,  and  thence  she  sped  through 

the  long  corridor,  down  the  stairs,  past  the  open 

door  of  the  vacant  library,  and   out  into  the 

166 


A    iMANIFEST    DESTINY 

grounds.  She  met  no  one,  and  when  at  last  she 
paused  in  the  dense  shadows  of  some  thick  shrub- 
bery, she  had  the  satisfaction  of  feeling  that  she 
had  been  unobserved.  Here,  too,  she  was  quite 
secluded,  and  in  the  effort  to  collect  herself  she 
sat  down  on  the  grass,  her  knees  drawn  up,  her 
forehead  resting  on  them,  her  clasped  hands 
strained  about  them. 

How  long  she  remained  so,  while  her  leaping 
heart  grew  gradually  calmer,  she  did  not  know. 
A  sound  aroused  her  from  her  lethargy.     It 
was  the  clear  whistle  of  some  one  calling  a  dog. 
She  knew  who  it  was  before  a  voice  said, 
"  Here,  Comrade — come  to  me,  sir." 
The  voice  was  not  far  off,  but  the  shrubbery 
was  between  it  and  her.     She  would  have  felt  safe 
but  for  the  dog.     She  did  not  move  a  muscle. 
The  footsteps  were  drawing  near  her,  and  now 
bounding  leaps  of  a  dog  could  be  heard  also. 
Both   passed,  and   she   began  to  breathe  more 
freely,  when  what  she  had  dreaded  came.     The 
dog,  stopping  his  gambols,  began  to  sniff  about 
him.     The  next  moment  he  had  bounded  through 
the  shrubbery  and  was  yelping  gleefully  at  her 
side. 

Instantly  she  sprang  to  her  feet  and  stood  there, 
slight  and  tall  and  straight  in  her  long  black 
167 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

wrap,  the  image  of  pallid  woe.  All  the  blood 
had  left  her  face,  and  her  eyes  were  wide  and 
terrified. 

It  was  so  that  she  appeared  to  the  man  who, 
parting  the  branches  of  the  thick  foliage,  stood 
silent  and  surprised  before  her.  She  might  have 
been  the  very  spirit  of  widowhood,  so  desolate 
she  looked. 

Raising  his  hat  automatically,  he  said,  in  a 
strained,  unnatural  voice,  "  Can  I  do  anything 
for  you  ?" 

She  tried  to  speak,  but  speech  eluded  her. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said,  "but  can  I  do 
anything  for  you,  Lady  Hurdly  ?" 

Oh,  that  name  !  She  had  had  an  instinct  to 
free  herself  at  last  from  the  burden  she  had  borne, 
and  to  tell  him,  in  answer  to  his  question,  that  he 
could  do  this  for  her — he  could  hear  her  tell  of 
the  wretched  treachery  by  which  she  had  been 
led  to  do  him  such  a  wrong,  and  of  the  misery  of 
its  consequences  in  her  life.  But  the  utterance 
of  that  name  recalled  her  to  herself.  It  remind- 
ed her  not  only  who  she  was,  but  also  who  and  by 
what  means  he  was  also. 

"  Leave  me/'  she  said,  throwing  out  her  hand 
with  a  repellent  gesture.    "I  have  gone  through 
much,  and  I  am  not  strong.     If  you  have  any 
168 


"THE  VERY  SPIRIT  OP  WIDOWHOOD" 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

mercy,  any  kindness,  leave  me  to  myself.  It  is 
not  proper,  perhaps,  that  I  should  ask  any  favor 
of  you,  but  I  do.  I  beg  you  not  to  speak  or  write 
to  me  again  until  I  have  done  what  must  be  done 
here,  and  gone  away  from  this  place  and  this 
country  forever." 

There  was  an  instant's  silence,  during  which 
Comrade  nestled  close  to  her  and  tried  to  lick  her 
hand,  all  the  time  looking  longingly  at  Horace. 
Then  a  voice,  constrained  and  low,  said,  sadly : 
"  I  will  grant  your  favor,  Lady  Hurdly.  What 
of  the  favor  I  have  asked  of  you  ?" 

"I  cannot.  It  is  impossible,"  she  cried.  "Sure- 
ly I  have  been  humiliated  enough  without  that. 
It  is  the  one  thing  you  have  in  your  power  to  do 
for  me,  never  to  mention  that  subject  again." 

"  I  shall  obey  you,"  he  said ;  "  but  in  return  I 
ask  that  you  will  not  forget  my  request  of  you, 
though  you  have  forced  me  to  silence.  While  a 
wrong  so  gross  as  that  goes  unrepaired  I  can  nev- 
er rest.  Remember  this,  and  that  you  have  it  in 
your  power  to  relieve  me  of  this  burden.  Now  I 
will  go." 

He  turned  and  vanished  through  the  shrub- 
bery, Comrade  after  him. 

Bettina  sank  upon  the  ground,  covering  her 
face  with  the  long  drapery  of  her  cape.  Snd- 
169 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

denly  she  felt  a  touch.  Her  heart  leaped,  and 
she  uncovered  her  head,  showing  the  light  of  a 
great  hope  in  her  eyes. 

But  it  was  only  Comrade,  nestling  close  to  her, 
with  human -eyed  compassion.  She  threw  her 
arms  around  him,  and  pressed  her  face  against 
his  shaggy  side. 

"  Did  he  send  you  to  me,  Comrade,"  she  whis- 
pered, "because  he  knew  that  I  was  miserable 
and  alone  ?" 

The  gentle  creature  whined  and  wagged  his  tail 
as  if  in  desperate  effort  to  reply. 

"I  know  he  did  !  I  know  he  did  !"  she  cried. 
"  Oh,  how  kind  and  good  and  unrevengef  ul  he  is ! 
And  I  can  never  tell  him  the  truth.  I  can  never 
tell  that  to  any  human  being,  Comrade,  but  I'll 
tell  it  to  you."  She  drew  his  head  close  to  her 
lips  and  whispered  a  few  words  in  his  ear. 

Then  she  sprang  to  her  feet,  a  great  light  in 
her  eyes,  as  she  threw  her  arms  upward  with  an 
exultant  movement,  and  cried,  as  if  to  some  un- 
seen witness  up  above,  "I  have  said  it !" 


CHAPTER  XIV 

A  TEE  this  Bettina  went  about  her  prepara- 
tions for  departure  with  a  spirit  of  calm 
and  collectedness  which  came  from  the 
knowledge  of  herself,  which  she  had  at  last  fully 
accepted.  Hundreds  of  times  in  these  last  few 
days  her  mother's  words  had  come  back  to  her  : 
"The  day  will  come  when  you  will  know  what 
you  are  incapable  even  of  imagining  now — what 
is  the  one  perfect  love  and  complete  union  that 
can  ever  be  between  two  human  beings. . .  .  Test 
the  world,  if  you  will — and  your  nature  demands 
that  you  shall  test  it — but  you  will  live  to  say 
one  day  :  '  My  mother  knew.  My  mother's  words 
have  come  true.' " 

It  was  even  so.  She  knew  now,  at  last,  and 
the  knowledge  had  come  to  her  when  inexorable 
necessity  compelled  her  to  separate  herself  for- 
ever from  the  man  who,  not  suddenly,  but  by  a 
system  of  gradual  evolution  —  from  the  crude 
emotions  of  her  girlhood  through  the  growing 
171 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

consciousness  of  later  years — had  now  manifested 
himself  to  her  as  all  her  heart  could  desire,  all 
her  spirit  could  crave,  all  her  mature  woman- 
hood could  need.  She  realized  that  he  had  long 
been  this  to  her,  but  with  a  thick  veil  between 
herself  and  him  which  had  hid  the  truth  from 
her.  The  reading  of  the  letter  given  her  by  Mr. 
Cortlin  had  torn  that  veil  apart,  and  she  saw 
him  as  he  was,  the  man  of  her  ideal.  She  did 
not,  at  the  same  moment,  see  her  own  heart  as 
it  was.  This  vision  had  come  to  her  with  her 
renewed  intercourse  with  Horace,  who  had  ap- 
peared before  her  now  the  ripe  product  of  the 
noble  possibilities  which  she  had  vaguely  per- 
ceived in  him  once,  when  she  had  cared  too 
Jittle  to  think  deeply  of  him  in  any  way. 

Oh,  to  have  kept  the  place  she  had  once  had 
at  his  dear  side  !  To  have  shared  with  him  the 
privations  of  a  life  that  would  have  been  narrow 
and  obscure  indeed  compared  with  the  one  which 
she  had  known  in  its  stead,  but,  oh,  how  rich  in 
the  way  she  had  now  come  to  count  riches ! 

Thoughts  like  these  she  had  to  fight  against. 
Perhaps  in  the  end  they  would  conquer,  and 
would  hunt  her  to  the  death  ;  but  now,  until  she 
could  get  ont  of  the  country,  she  must  put  them 
down. 

172 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

She  had  only  a  few  days  left,  and  she  deter- 
mined to  devote  a  part  of  these  to  some  farewell 
visits  among  the  tenants.  As  far  as  she  had  been 
able  to  do,  she  had  made  friends  with  these  poor 
folk,  and  had  given  what  she  could  to  relieve 
their  necessities ;  but,  in  comparison  with  what 
was  needed,  the  money  at  her  command  had 
seemed  pitifully  small. 

When  Lady  Hurdly,  dressed  in  her  deep 
widow's  mourning,  descended  the  steps  of  her 
stately  residence  and  entered  the  waiting  car- 
riage, whose  black-liveried  servants  saluted  her 
respectfully,  she  had  a  consciousness  that  ser- 
vants and  tenants  alike  must  feel  a  certain  com- 
miseration for  the  great  lady,  such  as  they  had 
known  her,  now  sunk  to  poverty  as  well  as  ob- 
scurity. This  feeling  made  her  manner  a  little 
colder  and  prouder  then  usual  as  she  sat  alone 
in  the  sunshine  of  a  lovely  autumn  morning  and 
was  driven  between  the  beautiful  English  hedge- 
rows and  through  the  fertile  fields  which  she  had 
learned  to  love.  How  soon  would  all  be  changed 
for  her  !  And  changed  to  what  ?  The  isolated 
exile  of  a  place  filled  with  the  haunting  memo- 
ries of  the  past — her  mother,  whom  she  had  lost 
forever,  and  her  young  lover,  who  was  as  abso- 
lutely lost  to  her. 

173 


Strangely  to  herself,  it  was  the  latter  that  she 
felt  to  be  the  keener  pain.  To  the  former  she 
was  reconciled ;  as  we  do,  sooner  or  later,  recon- 
cile ourselves  to  the  inevitable  ;  but  the  supreme 
sting  of  this  other  grief  was  that  she  felt  it  need 
not  have  been.  Sitting  there  in  her  carriage,  the 
object  of  much  eager  attention,  she  felt  so  deso- 
late and  wretched  that  it  was  with  difficulty  that 
she  kept  back  her  tears. 

She  dreaded  the  ordeal  before  her.  She  felt 
that  she  must  take  leave  of  these  people  and  say 
a  word  of  kindness  to  them,  since  she  was  so 
miserably  unable  to  do  more ;  but  these  visits 
were  always  depressing.  Since  the  tenants  had 
discovered  that  they  had  a  sympathetic  listener 
in  her,  they  had  luxuriated  in  the  pouring  out 
of  their  sorrows.  Of  course  they  had  not  vent- 
ured to  accuse  her  husband  of  being  connected 
with  them,  but  the  lesson  was  one  that  he  who 
ran  might  read. 

So,  when  the  carriage  stopped  at  the  door  of 
the  first  cottage,  she  had  made  up  her  mind  that 
she  could  not  stand  much  in  the  way  of  these 
miserable  confidences  to-day,  and  would  make 
her  visits  short. 

But  when  she  entered  the  house  she  was  con- 
scious of  a  total  change  of  atmosphere.  Every 
174 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

creature  in  the  room  gave  proof  of  this,  accord- 
ing to  his  or  her  kind.  The  old  woman  who  sat 
knitting  by  the  hearth  looked  up  at  her  with  a 
dim  twinkle  in  the  eyes  that  had  heretofore  ex- 
pressed nothing  but  a  consciousness  that  things 
were  bad  and  getting  worse  ;  and  the  children, 
who,  indeed,  had  taken  little  count  of  the  de- 
pression of  their  elders,  now  manifestly  shared 
their  relief  from  it.  It  was  their  mother  who, 
with  a  strange  smile  of  hope  on  her  careworn 
face  and  a  fervent  clasping  together  of  her  work- 
worn  hands,  made  the  explanation  to  the  visitor. 

But  this  explanation,  when  it  had  been  heard, 
was  almost  more  of  an  ordeal  to  Bettina  than  the 
one  which  she  had  feared.  Certainly  it  made  a 
stronger  demand  upon  her  power  of  self-control. 
For  the  key-note  of  it  all  was  Horace.  He  had 
been  here  before  her,  and  had  done,  or  promised 
to  have  done,  all  that  she  had  so  passionately 
wished  to  do.  His  name  was  on  their  lips  con- 
tinually ;  even  the  little  children  lisped  it.  It 
was  "  his  lordship  this  "and  "  his  lordship  that/' 
in  a  way  that  furnished  a  strange  contrast  to  the 
studied  avoidance  of  the  word  under  former  con- 
ditions. 

Somehow,  glad  as  she  was,  it  was  hard  for 
Bettina  to  bear.  In  the  midst  of  the  accounts 
175 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

of  what  his  lordship  had  done  and  said,  and  how 
he  was  to  right  all  their  wrongs  and  make  every, 
body  happy,  she  got  up  and  took  a  hurried 
leave. 

What  was  the  use  of  her  staying  here  ?  What 
was  a  little  sympathetic  feeling,  more  or  less,  to 
these  wretchedly  poor  creatures  ?  It  was  their 
material  needs  that  they  wished  satisfied,  and  a 
stronger  hand  than  hers  was  at  work  on  these. 
And  if — as  seemed  so  plain,  as  she  could  so  well 
imagine  from  her  own  knowledge  of  him — he 
was  able  and  willing  to  give  them  the  sympathy 
and  interest  as  well  as  the  practical  help  they 
needed,  where  was  any  use  for  her  ?  There  was 
none — nobody  needed  her,  she  told  herself,  des- 
perately, and  the  sooner  she  lost  herself  in  the 
oblivion  of  America  the  better. 

Each  cottage  that  she  visited  showed  the  same 
metamorphosis  in  its  inmates.  A  lame  boy  to 
whom  she  had  once  given  a  pair  of  crutches  had 
a  new  wheel-chair,  and  the  crutches  were  thrown 
in  a  corner.  A  sick  child  for  whom  she  had 
bought  some  prepared  food,  which  it  had  not 
been  able  to  take,  had  been  sent  off  to  a  hospital 
for  regular  treatment,  and  its  poor  mother  was 
enjoying  the  first  rest  of  many  years,  with  a  con- 
sciousness that  the  child  was  better  off  than  it 
176 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

could  possibly  be  with  her.  An  old  man  who  had 
been  long  bedridden,  and  to  whom  she  had  sent 
some  clean  bedclothes,  had  been  moved  into  an- 
other room  with  complete  new  furnishings,  while 
the  occupant  of  this  room  had  been  sent  else- 
where, so  that  the  distressing  sense  of  over-crowd- 
eduess  for  sick  and  well  was  entirely  gone  from 
the  house. 

In  almost  every  cottage  that  she  visited  she  saw 
the  same  evidences.  How  pitiful  her  own  efforts 
seemed  beside  these  !  What  was  heart  compared 
with  hand  ?  What  was  sympathy  compared  with 
money  ?  And  was  she  so  sure  that  she  gave  even 
the  sympathy  ?  She  felt  in  her  breast  now  no 
sense  of  pity  for  their  suffering,  no  consciousness 
even  of  rejoicing  in  their  relief.  The  only  feel- 
ing there — and  it  seemed  to  fill  her  whole  heart 
— was  pity  for  her  own  numb,  gnawing  wretched- 
ness, for  which  there  could  be  no  relief. 

When  the  last  hurried  visit  was  ended,  she 
drove  home,  completely  unnerved.  Her  black 
veil  was  lowered  before  her  face,  and  though  she 
sat  erect  and  composed  to  outward  seeming,  the 
tears  rained  down  her  cheeks. 

Her  remaining  days  at  Kingdon  Hall  were  spent 
in  a  state  of  such  listlessness  and  inertia  that 
Nora  began  to  fear  that  she  was  going  to  be  ill. 
M  177 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

She  urged  her  mistress  to  send  for  the  doctor ; 
but,  for  answer,  Bettina  burst  into  tears,  declar- 
ing that  she  was  not  ill,  and  begging  Nora  to  do 
everything  for  her  that  was  necessary  to  get  her 
off  on  the  steamer  on  which  she  had  taken  pass- 
age, as  she  felt  unable  to  do  anything  herself. 

How  the  intervening  hours  passed  she  never 
knew  ;  but,  as  if  taking  part  in  a  dream,  she  went 
through  them  all,  and  at  last  found  herself  settled 
in  her  state-room,  with  Nora  to  take  care  of  her, 
and  no  one  to  spy  on  her  or  notice  what  she  did. 
Asking  Nora,  as  piteously  as  a  child,  to  help  her 
to  undress,  she  went  to  bed,  and  from  that  bed 
she  did  not  rise  until  the  ship  had  touched  an- 
other shore,  and  the  breadth  of  the  world  lay 
between  herself  and  Horace. 

How  glad  she  would  have  been  to  lie  there  and 
sail  on  forever,  freed  from  her  responsibility  to 
the  future,  as  she  was  from  that  to  the  past ! 


CHAPTER  XV 

IT  was  when  Bettina  was  a  matter  of  three 
hours  out  at  sea  that  Lord  Hurdly  arrived  at 
Kingdon  Hall,  and,  on  being  admitted,  or- 
dered the  servant  to  say  to  Lady  Hurdly  that  he 
wished  to  see  her.  His  surprise  was  great  when 
the  man  informed  him  that  Lady  Hurdly  had 
that  day  sailed  for  America. 

Dismissing  the  servant,  he  went  to  the  library 
and  shut  himself  up  there  alone.  How  strangely 
was  this  house  altered  to  him  in  one  moment's 
time  !  Just  now  he  had  felt  a  presence  in  it 
which  had  made  every  atom  of  it  significant. 
Now,  how  dead,  empty,  meaningless,  it  had  sud- 
denly become ! 

The  effect  of  this  change  was  almost  startling 
to  him,  and  for  the  first  time  he  had  the  cour- 
age to  face  himself  and  to  demand  of  his  own 
soul  an  explanation. 

He  was  a  man  of  a  peculiarly  uncomplex 
nature.  When,  on  meeting  Bettina,  he  for  the 
179 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

first  time  fell  deeply  in  love,  he  had  looked  upon 
the  matter  as  a  finality,  and  he  had  never  ceased 
so  to  regard  it.  When  she  deserted  him,  with- 
out giving  him  a  chance  to  speak,  he  had,  in  the 
overwhelming  bitterness  of  his  heart,  forsworn 
all  women.  It  had  never  occurred  to  him  to  put 
another  in  Bettina's  place.  For  a  long  time  a 
passionate  resentment  possessed  him.  When  he 
knew  that  Bettina  had  married  his  cousin,  this 
resentment  had  had  two  objects  to  feed  upon  in- 
stead of  one ;  but  at  first  the  bitterness  of  his 
anger  against  the  being  in  whom  he  had  supreme- 
ly believed  greatly  outweighed  that  against  the 
being  in  whom  he  had  never  believed.  Lord 
Hurdly  had  never  had  it  in  his  power  to  wonnd 
and  anger  him  as  Bettina  could.  So,  when  he 
got  transferred  from  St.  Petersburg  to  Simla,  it 
was  with  the  instinct  of  removing  himself  as 
far  as  possible  from  Bettina.  Of  the  other  he 
scarcely  thought. 

When,  however,  the  first  consternation  of  the 
sudden  blow  was  over,  and  he  grew  calm  enough 
to  be  capable  of  anything  like  temperate  thought, 
he  tried  to  imagine  how  this  strange  state  of 
things  had  come  about. 

Obviously  Bettina  must  have  sought  Lord 
Hurdly  out,  and  it  was  almost  certain  that  she 
180 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

had  done  this  with  a  view  to  mediating  between 
him  and  his  offending  heir.  He  recalled  her 
having  said,  more  than  once,  that  she  intended 
to  win  him  over,  and  he  pictured  to  himself  what 
had  probably  transpired  in  the  fulfilment  of  her 
plan.  Lord  Hurdly,  who  was  notoriously  indif- 
ferent to  women,  saw  in  Bettina  a  new  type,  and, 
as  consequent  events  proved,  became  possessed 
of  the  wish  to  have  her  for  his  wife.  This  being 
so,  he  had  probably  not  scrupled  as  to  the  means 
to  this  end.  Gradually,  from  having  held  Bet- 
tina chiefly  guilty,  Horace  began  to  feel  that  it 
was  quite  possible  that  she  had  been  less  so  than 
the  artful  and  determined  man,  who  had  un- 
doubtedly brought  to  bear  on  her  all  the  wiles  of 
which  he  was  master. 

What  the  wiles  were,  how  unscrupulously  they 
were  employed  to  effect  any  end  that  he  had  in 
view,  Horace  was  now  more  than  ever  aware. 

And  every  fresh  revelation  of  them  tended  to 
soften  him  toward  Bettina.  He  was  in  the  habit 
of  trusting  his  instincts,  and  these  had  as  deter- 
minedly declared  to  him  that  his  cousin  was  false. 
On  his  return  to  England,  after  Lord  Hurdly's 
death,  both  of  these  instincts  had  found  ample 
confirmation.  The  more  he  looked  into  the  af- 
fairs of  his  predecessor,  in  his  relations  to  his  ten- 
181 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

ants,  his  family,  his  lawyers,  and  the  world  at 
large,  the  more  did  his  mistrust  and  condemna- 
tion of  him  deepen,  while,  as  for  Bettina,  it  took 
little  more  than  the  impression  of  his  first  inter- 
view with  her  to  restore  almost  wholly  his  old 
belief  in  her  truth  and  nobleness. 

On  the  basis  of  her  having  been  deceived  by 
Lord  Hurdly  about  him,  he  could  forgive  her  her 
marriage.  Where  would  her  desolate  heart  have 
turned  for  comfort  ?  And  he  knew  her  nature 
well  enough  to  realize  that  what  Lord  Hurdly  had 
to  offer  might  have  seemed  likely  to  serve  her  as 
a  substitute  for  happiness.  He  knew,  moreover, 
that  Bettina  had  never  loved  him  in  the  sense  in 
which  he  had  loved  her,  and  this  fact  made  his 
judgment  gentler. 

As  he  stood  there  alone,  in  the  great  house, 
strangely  empty  now  that  her  rich  presence  was 
removed  from  it,  he  wished  with  all  his  heart  that 
he  had  gone  to  her,  and  forcing  her  to  look  at  him 
with  those  candid  eyes  of  hers,  had  said  :  "  Bet- 
tina, tell  me  the  truth.  Why  did  yon  do  it?"  Oh, 
if  he  only  had  ! 

Then  reflection  forced  upon  him  the  possible 

answer  that  he  might  have  received.    She  might 

have  coldly  resented  the  impertinence  of  such  a 

speech,  or  she  might  have  given  him  to  under- 

182 


A    MANIFEST   DESTINY 

stand  that  what  appeared  true  was  really  true — 
namely,  that  his  cousin's  splendid  offer  was  pre- 
ferred to  his  poor  one.  Yes,  he  was  no  doubt  a 
fool  to  hold  on  to  his  belief  in  Bettina  in  face  of 
the  obvious  facts.  The  thing  he  had  to  do  was 
to  overcome  it,  and  go  on  with  his  life  and  career 
quite  apart  from  her. 

This  would  have  been  the  easier  to  do  but  for 
one  thing.  He  had  satisfied  himself  that  Bettina 
had  been  unhappy  in  her  marriage  to  Lord  Hurdly. 
It  was  evident  that  the  worldly  importance  which 
it  had  given  her  had  not  sufficed  her  needs.  He 
knew — her  own  mother  had  avowed  it  to  him — 
that  Bettina  was  ambitious ;  but  he  knew,  what 
the  same  source  had  also  revealed,  that  she  had  a 
good  and  loving  heart.  What  he  felt  was  that 
she  had  been  taught  by  bitter  experience  the 
emptiness  of  mere  worldly  gratification,  and  that 
poor  heart  of  hers  was  breaking  in  its  loneliness. 

But  then  came  reason  again,  and  pointed  to  the 
hard  facts  before  his  eyes.  What  a  fool  he  was 
to  go  on  constructing  a  romantic  theory  out  of 
his  own  consciousness  when  Bettina,  by  definite 
choice  and  decision,  had  proved  herself  to  be, 
what  he  must  compel  himself  to  consider  her, 
both  heartless  and  false  ! 

Fortified  by  the  bitter  support  of  this  concep- 
183 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

tion  of  her,  he  left  the  library,  and,  for  the  first 
time  since  his  return,  made  the  complete  tonr  of 
the  house.  Through  most  of  the  apartments  he 
passed  swiftly  enough,  but  in  two  of  them  he 
paused.  The  first  was  the  long  picture-gallery, 
where  he  looked  critically  at  his  own  boyish  por- 
trait, wondering  if  Bettina  had  ever  looked  at  it, 
and  what  feelings  it  might  have  aroused,  and  then 
passed  on  and  stood  before  that  most  beautiful 
of  all  the  Lady  Hurdlys  who  had  been  or  who 
might  ever  be.  But  this  was  too  demoralizing 
to  that  mood  of  hardness  that  he  had  but  recent- 
ly assumed,  and  so  he  turned  his  back  on  the 
gracious  image  and  walked  away. 

It  was  not  long,  however,  before  he  found  him- 
self in  Bettina's  own  apartments.  These  he  re- 
membered well,  and  in  the  main  they  were 
unchanged.  Yet  what  a  subtle  difference  he 
felt  in  them  !  Here  on  this  great  gloomy  bed 
had  that  poor  orphan  girl  slept,  or  else  lain 
wakeful  in  the  dread  consciousness  which  must 
have  come  to  her  when  once  she  realized  the 
nature  and  character  of  the  man  to  whom  she 
had  given  herself  in  marriage.  Here  in  this 
stately  mirror  had  she  seen  herself  arrayed  in 
the  splendid  clothes  which  were  the  poor  price 
for  which  she  had  sold  her  birthright.  He  stood 
184 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

and  looked  at  himself  in  the  mirror,  with  an  un- 
canny feeling  that  behind  his  own  image  there 
was  that  of  the  beautiful  Bettina,  whom  once  he 
had  thought  to  protect  forever  by  his  love  and 
strength  and  tenderness,  and  who  now,  with  only 
a  hired  servant,  was  alone  in  the  great  shipful  of 
strangers,  on  her  way  to  the  loneliness  of  that 
empty  little  village  which  her  mother's  presence 
had  once  so  adequately  filled  for  her. 

He  went  to  the  wardrobe  and  opened  the  door, 
hoping  to  find  some  trace  of  Bettina.  But  no; 
all  was  orderly  and  void.  Then  he  passed  on  to 
the  dressing-table  and  opened  the  drawers,  one 
by  one.  In  the  last  there  lay  a  small  hair-pin  of 
fine  bent  wire.  He  had  an  impulse  to  take  it, 
but,  with  a  muttered  imprecation  on  his  folly,  he 
called  to  aid  his  recent  resolution,  and  hastily 
left  the  room. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

BETTINA  had  been  in  her  old  home  a  week 
— long  enough  to  recuperate  from  her 
journey  and  begin  to  take  up  her  life, 
such  as  it  was  to  be.  She  would  gladly  have  re- 
laxed entirely  and  lain  in  bed  to  be  waited  on 
and  tended  by  Nora,  had  this  been  possible. 
But  she  had  wearied  of  the  physical  rest,  which 
only  made  her  mental  restlessness  the  greater, 
and  she  had  an  impulse  to  reach  out  her  empty 
hands  so  that  somehow,  somewhence  they  might 
be  filled. 

The  neighbors  had  called  on  her  promptly, 
but  she  could  not  see  them.  They  reminded 
her  too  much  of  the  mother  she  had  lost.  Mr. 
Spotswood  had  also  called,  but  he  was  a  reminder 
of  the  other  loss,  now  the  more  poignant  of  the 
two.  "When  she  excused  herself  to  him  also  he 
wrote  her  a  note — the  conventional  thing,  and 
that  merely.  It  seemed  strangely  lacking  in  the 
solicitude  and  affection  which  she  had  a  right  to 
186 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

expect  from  her  old  friend  and  rector.  Bettina 
was  struck  with  this,  and  instantly  there  flashed 
over  her  a  reason  for  it.  It  was  only  natural 
that  he  should  feel  a  certain  resentment  of  her 
jilting  of  one  of  his  cousins,  even  though  she 
had  done  it  in  favor  of  another  and  more  im- 
portant one.  She  remembered  that  the  rector 
had  been  extremely  fond  of  Horace,  and  at  this 
thought  she  had  a  sudden  desire  to  see  him. 
So  she  wrote  him  a  note  and  asked  him  to  come. 

It  was  so  long  since  she  had  talked  with  any 
one,  and  she  was  so  nervous  after  all  her  morbid 
imagining,  that  she  was  feeling  utterly  unlike 
the  old  self-reliant,  active-minded  girl  he  remem- 
bered when  the  rector  entered  the  room.  She 
also,  on  her  part,  was  unprepared  for  the  feel- 
ings aroused  by  the  sight  of  him  ;  and  when  he 
came  in,  his  grave  face  and  gentle  manner  so 
entirely  unchanged,  in  contrast  to  all  the  changes 
she  had  undergone,  Bettina  felt  a  sudden  ten- 
dency to  tears.  The  thought  of  her  mother  also 
helped  to  weaken  her,  and  the  thought  of  Horace 
was  a  still  harder  strain  on  her  endurance. 

She  saw  a  certain  constraint  in  his  manner 

first,  as  she  had  perceived  it  in  his  note.     She 

felt  unaccountably  hurt  by  it,  and  when  he  took 

her  hand  a  little  coldly  and  inquired  for  her 

187 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

health,  a  rush  of  feelings  overwhelmed  her  and 
she  burst  into  tears. 

In  evident  surprise,  the  visitor  tried  to  soothe 
her  as  best  he  could.  Naturally  supposing  that 
this  grief  was  in  consequence  of  her  recent 
widowhood,  he  pressed  her  hand,  and  said, 
gently : 

"  I  trust  you  are  not  overtaxing  yourself  by 
seeing  me,  my  child.  If  you  had  preferred  not 
to  do  so  I  should  not  have  misunderstood.  Your 
bereavement  is  so  recent  that — " 

But  Bettina,  trying  to  silence  her  sobs,  inter- 
rupted him. 

"  Oh,  forgive  me,  Mr.  Spotswood,"  she  said. 
"  I  had  not  thought  I  should  break  down  like 
this.  I  have  been  perfectly  calm.  It  is  not 
what  you  suppose.  Oh,  I  feel  so  wretched,  so 
lonely,  so  bewildered  !  I  would  give  the  world 
if  I  could  speak  out  my  heart  to  one  human 
being." 

The  rector  looked  surprised,  but  visibly  soft- 
ened. 

"  To  whom  may  you  speak  if  not  to  me,  Bet- 
tina ?"  he  said.  "Surely,  whatever  trouble  is 
on  your  heart,  you  may  count  upon  my  sympa- 
thy." 

Bettina  did  not  speak.  With  her  face  hid  in 
188 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

her  pocket-handkerchief  she  shook  her  head,  as 
if  in  dissent  from  the  idea  of  his  sympathy. 

Feeling  rather  helpless,  he  changed  his  tactics, 
in  an  honest  endeavor  to  get  at  the  real  cause  of 
her  trouble. 

"Naturally,  my  child,"  he  said,  "the  sight 
of  me  brings  back  the  thought  of  your  beloved 
mother.  Such  a  sorrow — " 

But  again  she  interrupted  him,  this  time  by  a 
silent  gesture  of  the  hand.  Then  she  said : 

"It  is  not  that.  I've  got  used  to  that  ache, 
and  although  my  heart  would  not  be  my  heart 
without  it,  that  is  a  silent  and  accepted  sorrow 
now.  Oh,  Mr.  Spotswood,"  she  said,  impetu- 
ously, uncovering  her  tear-stained  face  and  look- 
ing at  him  with  the  helplessness  of  a  child, 
"  you  are  a  clergyman ;  you  teach  that  God  is 
love  and  compassion  and  forgiveness  ;  you  have 
a  kind  heart  !  I  know  you  have.  Perhaps  if  I 
could  tell  you  all  I  have  suffered,  and  how  deep- 
ly I  have  repented,  you  would  be  sorry  for  me, 
and  not  blame  me  as  much  as  I  deserve  to  be 
blamed." 

She  was  looking  at  him  tentatively,  as  if  to 
see  how  far  she  could  trust  to  the  forbearance  of 
which  she  felt  she  had  now  such  need. 

The  rector's  heart  was  deeply  touched.  This 
189 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

show  of  humility  in  the  high-spirited,  self-willed 
girl  that  he  remembered  took  him  by  surprise. 

"  It  could  never  be  my  impulse  to  blame  you, 
my  dear  child,  and  the  less  so  when  I  see  how 
bitterly  you  are  blaming  yourself  for  this  un- 
known thing.  If  yon  will  tell  me  about  it,  I 
will  do  all  that  may  be  in  my  power  to  help  you. 
At  all  events,  yon  may  count  upon  my  loving 
sympathy/' 

"  Ah,  if  I  only  could  !  It  would  be  much  to 
me  now.  But  you  are  ignorant  of  what  you  are 
promising.  In  a  certain  way  it  concerns  your- 
self, or  at  least  a  member  of  your  family." 

She  saw  a  slightly  hardened  look  come  into 
his  face,  but  it  quickly  gave  way  to  a  gentler 
one. 

"No  matter  what  it  is,  if  you  have  suffered 
and  repented,  the  best  sympathy  of  my  heart  is 
yours." 

"Yon  will  regard  it  as  a  confidence — a  sacred 
confidence  ?"  said  Bettina.  "I  could  only  tell 
you  with  that  understanding.  I  know  that  a 
clergyman  is  accustomed  to  keeping  the  secrets 
of  his  people,  and  I  could  not  say  a  word  unless 
I  were  sure  that  this  thing  would  rest  forever  be- 
tween you  and  me/' 

Wishing  to  soothe  her  in  every  possible  way, 
190 


"'TRULY,  MY  CHILD,  IT  IS  A  WRETCHED  STORY'" 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

the  rector  gave  her  his  promise  to  keep  sacred 
what  she  might  tell  him ;  and  thus  reassured, 
poor  Bettina  opened  her  heart.  The  relief  of  it 
was  so  exquisite  and  the  experience  was  so  rare, 
that  she  told  it  all  with  the  abandonment  of  a 
child  at  its  mother's  knee,  and  with  a  degree  of 
self-accusation  that  might  well  have  disarmed 
condemnation,  as  indeed  it  did. 

Up  to  the  time  of  her  meeting  with  Horace  in 
England,  she  kept  back  nothing,  describing  with 
absolute  truth  her  feelings  as  well  as  her  conduct. 
When  she  had  reached  that  point,  however,  a 
sense  of  instinctive  reserve  came  to  her,  and  a 
few  brief  sentences  described  what  had  happened 
since. 

At  the  end  of  her  recital  she  paused,  looking 
eagerly  into  the  rector's  face,  as  if  she  both 
hoped  and  feared  what  he  might  say. 

"  Truly,  my  child,  it  is  a  wretched  story,"  he 
began,  as  if  a  little  careful  in  the  choosing  of  his 
words,  "but  the  knowledge  of  it  has  deepened 
instead  of  lessened  my  sympathy  for  you.  Your 
fault  has  been  very  great,  but  so  is  your  sense  of 
compunction ;  and  as  far  as  suffering  can  expi- 
ate, surely  you  have  done  much  to  atone.  My 
own  knowledge  of  the  character  of  the  late  Lord 
Hurdly  was  such  that  I  cannot  pretend  to  be 
191 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

greatly  surprised  at  what  you  have  told  me  con- 
cerning him.  I  regret  to  say  it,  but  justice  must 
be  done  to  the  living  as  well  as  to  the  dead.  The 
present  Lord  Hurdly  will  prove,  I  trust  and  be- 
lieve, an  honor  to  the  name.  My  intercourse 
with  him  has  been  comparatively  limited,  but  no 
young  man  has  ever  inspired  me  with  a  stronger 
sense  of  confidence.  So  much  do  I  feel  this  that 
I  will  confess  to  a  strong  desire  that  he  should 
know  upon  what  ground  you  acted  toward  him 
as  you  did.  I  have  given  my  word  to  you,  how- 
ever, and  perhaps  it  is  as  well.  That  poor  man 
so  lately  gone  to  his  account  has  stains  enough 
upon  his  memory  without  this  added  one.  And 
when  I  think  of  Horace — what  he  has  suffered 
through  the  treachery  of  his  kinsman — I  feel 
that  it  is  perhaps  kindest  to  him  also  to  leave 
this  dark  secret  in  the  oblivion  which  buries  it 
in  our  two  hearts." 

Bettina  seemed  not  to  hear  his  last  words. 
"He  has  suffered?    You  think  he  has  suf- 
fered, and  through  me  ?" 

"  Is  it  possible  that  you  can  doubt  it  ?" 
"  He  gave  no  sign,"  began  Bettina,  hesitat- 
ingly. 

"  To  you — certainly  not.     How  could  he  ?" 
"Did  he  to  you  ?"  she  said,  breathlessly. 
192 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

The  rector  looked  at  her  with  a  sort  of  sad 
scrutiny,  and  was  silent  a  moment.  Then  he 
said  : 

"  He  wrote  me  one  letter — the  most  broken- 
hearted expression  of  suffering  I  have  ever  read. 
It  was  before  your  marriage,  when  he  still  had 
some  slight  hope  that  you  had  mistaken  your 
own  feelings,  in  the  statement  of  them  which 
you  had  made  in  your  letter  to  him.  But  then 
came  the  announcement  of  your  marriage,  since 
which  time  your  name  has  not  been  mentioned 
between  us." 

"  Did  you  keep  that  letter  ?"  she  said. 

"  I  did." 

"  Will  you  let  me  see  it  ?" 

"  I  am  afraid  I  cannot  properly  do  that." 

"  I  beg  that  you  will,  Mr.  Spotswood.  You 
would  be  doing  me  a  very  great  favor,  and  for 
your  cousin's  sake  also  I  think  I  may  venture  to 
ask  it.  I  was  told  that  he  was  '  fickle  and  capri- 
cious, incapable  of  a  sustained  affection/  and 
much  more  in  the  same  line.  T  should  be  truly 
glad  to  know  that  this  was  false." 

"  I  can  give  yon  my  word  for  that." 

"  But  you  can  give  me  also  his  word,  if  you 
will,"  she  said,  beseechingly.  "  Oh,  my  dear, 
dear  friend,  I  too  have  suffered,  and  I  believe 
N  193 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

that  what  I  have  endured  is  the  worst  of  pain, 
for  it  comes  from  the  knowledge  of  wrong  to 
another.  You  cannot  take  away  that  pain,  but 
perhaps  you  can  restore  to  me  a  lost  ideal.  I 
had  come  to  think  that  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  love — real  love — in  the  world ;  to  believe  not 
only  that  the  man  who  had  professed  it  for  me 
was  false  in  that  profession,  but  that  it  really  did 
not  exist.  Let  me  see  that  letter.  It  is  an  im- 
personal thing  to  me  now,  but  I  feel  that  it  would 
strengthen  me  for  all  my  future  life.  I  am  going 
to  try  to  be  good ;  indeed  I  am,"  she  said,  her 
lips  trembling  like  a  child's.  "  If  I  feel  that  that 
letter  would  help  me,  why  may  I  not  see  it  ?" 

The  rector  hesitated  visibly ;  then  he  said  : 

"You  shall  see  it,  Bettina.  I  cannot  feel  that 
it  will  do  any  harm,  and  it  will  be  an  act  of  jus- 
tice, perhaps,  to  him  as  well  as  to  you.  Whoever 
represented  him  to  be  lacking  in  depth  of  feeling 
has  done  him  a  wrong  indeed.  I  had  no  need  to 
have  this  proved  to  me,  but  if  there  be  such  a  need 
in  any  breast,  the  reading  of  this  letter  must  do 
away  with  it." 

In  a  few  moments  he  rose  to  take  leave,  having 
promised  to  send  the  letter  to  her. 

"  Will  you  send  it  at  once  ?"  she  asked.    "May 
Nora  go  with  you  and  bring  it  back  ?" 
194 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

In  the  stress  of  her  feeling  she  forgot  the  im- 
pression that  her  eagerness  might  make ;  but  it 
had  not  been  lost  upon  the  rector,  who  pondered 
all  these  things  in  his  heart  as  he  went  home- 
ward. 

"When  he  had  given  the  letter  to  Nora,  and  she 
had  taken  it  to  her  mistress,  he  wondered  if  he 
had  done  well.  Bettina  had  not  pretended  that 
she  had  really  loved  the  man  to  whom  she  had 
first  engaged  herself.  The  preoccupied  interest 
and  affection  which  she  had  given  him  then  were 
not  misrepresented  in  her  confession  to  the  rec- 
tor, and  she  had  been  absolutely  silent  as  to  her 
subsequent  and  present  feeling  toward  him.  All 
that  she  said,  the  whole  burden  of  her  song,  was 
that  she  had  so  wronged  him  in  that  past  time  ; 
never  once  had  she  hinted  at  the  possibility  of 
any  renewal  of  relations  between  them. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  the  rector  knew  Bettiua  well, 
and  he  recognized  the  fact  that  she  was  under 
the  dominion  of  some  larger  and  deeper  feeling 
than  he  had  ever  known  her  to  have  except  her 
affection  for  her  mother.  And  had  even  that,  he 
asked  himself,  so  permeated  her  whole  being — 
mind,  soul,  and  character — as  this  feeling  in  which 
he  now  saw  her  so  absorbed  ?  He  answered  that 
it  had  not.  It  was,  therefore,  taking  a  certain  re- 
195 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

sponsibility  upon  himself  to  show  this  letter. 
But  he  was  acting  in  the  interest  of  truth  and 
justice,  and  he  could  not  find  it  in  his  heart  to 
regret  what  he  had  done. 

Temperate,  judicious,  deliberate  as  the  rector 
was  in  all  his  mental  processes,  he  could  not  im- 
agine that  any  result  could  come  from  the  course 
which  he  had  taken,  except  some  very  remote  one. 
Bettina  had  shown  plainly  her  determination  nev- 
er to  divulge  to  Horace  the  contents  of  Mr.  Cort- 
lin's  letter ;  he  was  under  promise  to  keep  the 
secret  also,  so  there  was  no  ground  upon  which 
the  intercourse  between  them  could  be  renewed. 
Besides  this,  Bettina  was  but  recently  become  a 
widow.  The  proprieties  of  the  situation  demand- 
ed absolute  seclusion  for  a  year  at  least,  and, 
in  Mr.  Spotswood's  consciousness,  propriety  was 
supreme.  He  never  took  count  of  the  fact  that 
conventions  could  be  disregarded  by  any  right- 
minded  person,  and  to  this  extent  at  least  he  con- 
ceived Bettina  to  be  right-minded. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  reading  of  that  letter  from  Horace  to 
the  rector  was  a  crisis  in  Bettina's  life. 
Its  effect  upon  her  was  singular.  "When 
she  eagerly  took  in  those  pages  filled  with  such 
anguish  as  possesses  the  heart  but  once  or  twice 
in  a  lifetime,  the  consciousness  that  it  was  she, 
Bettina,  who  had  created  such  a  love  in  the  heart 
of  the  man  that  Horace  Spotswood  was  to  her 
now,  so  exhilarated  her  that  she  was  capable  of 
but  one  feeling — exultation.  To  have  had  this 
love,  though  now  she  had  it  not,  seemed  to  glori- 
fy her  life.  To  have  caused  him  such  sorrow — 
how  greatly  he  had  cared  !  In  spite  of  all  there 
was  rapture  in  it! 

That  mood  was  followed  by  one  of  intense 
regret — an  excoriating  self-accusation  that  made 
her  spirit  writhe  before  her  own  bar  of  justice. 
Then,  by  degrees,  when  there  came  a  moment 
of  comparative  calm,  she  forced  herself  to 
recognize  the  fact  that  it  was  the  Bettina  of 
197 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

the  past  who  had  been  so  loved,  and  that  the 
man  who  had  so  loved  her  was  that  yonthful 
and  impulsive  Horace.  "Was  not  the  present 
Bettina,  the  slightingly  treated  widow  of  his 
cousin,  a  very  different  being  —  as  different  as 
was  the  present  Lord  Hurdly  from  that  old 
and  outgrown  other  self  ?  Surely  the  change  in 
both  was  great — a  change  which  she  construed 
as  absolutely  to  her  own  disadvantage  as  it  was 
to  his  advantage. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  this,  that  letter  brought  a 
strange  strength  to  her  heart.  Since  it  was 
now  so  plain  that  he  had  so  truly,  so  worship- 
pingly  loved  her,  she  felt  a  summons  to  her  soul 
to  be  her  highest  possible,  to  overcome  the 
slothful  and  the  evil  in  her,  and  live  as  it  be- 
came the  woman  who  had  been  so  loved  by  such 
a  man.  Above  all,  she  longed  to  make  her  life 
avail  for  the  good  of  others,  that  she  might 
make  it  a  thank-offering  for  what  she  had  re- 
ceived in  the  knowledge  that  had  come  to  her 
through  that  letter. 

For,  after  its  perusal,  she  knew  that  never 
again  could  she  entertain  the  doubts  which  had 
so  often  filled  her  mind  at  the  thought  of  the 
complete  silence  in  which  Horace  had  accepted 
her  rejection  of  him.  Sometimes  she  had  fan- 
198 


A    MANIFEST   DESTINY 

cied  that  it  might  have  been  a  relief  to  him — 
a  way  out  of  a  difficult  situation ;  but  now  for- 
ever in  her  heart  she  could  carry  the  proud 
consciousness  that  she  had  been  as  passionate- 
ly loved  as  she  had  been  desperately  regretted. 

It  was  a  strange  source,  perhaps,  from  which 
to  draw  strength,  but  it  availed  her  now.  "With 
a  sudden  renewal  of  the  energy  of  her  youth  she 
began  to  look  about  her  for  work  which  she 
might  do.  Fortunately  the  rector  was  ready 
with  practical,  immediate  employment  for  heart 
and  hand,  and  pocket,  too,  alas !  for  now  the 
fact  was  forced  upon  her  consciousness  that  she 
was  poor.  It  would  be  as  one  of  themselves, 
only  somewhat  different  in  degree,  that  she 
must  help  these  suffering  ones,  and,  in  spite  of 
being  hampered  by  this  limitation,  there  was  a 
certain  sweetness  in  it.  Her  work  among  the 
poor  had  begun  at  Kingdon  Hall,  and  there  she 
had  been  often  baffled  by  the  sense  of  the  difference 
between  herself  and  those  whom  she  wished  to 
help.  She  knew  that  this  consciousness  was  in 
their  hearts  as  well  as  in  hers,  and  that  it  made 
an  impalpable  but  positive  barrier.  But  now  and 
here  all  was  different.  She  longed  for  the  money 
that  would  have  enabled  her  to  do  so  much 
more,  and  yet  she  felt  it,  somehow,  sweet  to  be 
199 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

as  they.  Her  consciousness  of  her  own  past 
wrong-doing  had  so  penetrated  her  sonl  with  hu- 
mility that  she  was  like  a  totally  different  being. 

She  had  said  nothing  to  the  rector  of  her  de- 
termination not  to  touch  the  money  that  her 
late  husband  had  left  her,  but  she  strictly  ad- 
hered to  this  resolve.  It  was  impossible.  She 
simply  felt  she  could  not.  She  found  no  diffi- 
culty in  forgiving  him  for  all  that  he  had  doue. 
She  was  too  tender-hearted  to  bear  malice  tow- 
ard the  dead,  but  she  could  not  touch  his  mon- 
ey. Since  she  had  once  thought  about  it — re- 
ceiving food  and  clothes  and  comforts  from  his 
hands — she  had  realized  that  it  was  an  impossi- 
bility. She  knew  that  the  money  was  deposited 
in  bank  for  her,  but  there  it  might  remain.  She 
had  told  Horace  that  she  would  not  touch  it, 
and  he  should  see  that  she  would  keep  her  word. 

Then  came  a  thought  that  made  her  smile. 
He  had  wished  to  force  upon  her  the  acceptance 
of  a  larger  sum,  because  it  was  not  proper  that 
Lord  Hurdly's  widow  should  live  otherwise  than 
in  pomp  and  circumstance.  If  he  could  see  her 
now  !  This  it  was  that  made  her  smile. 

She  had  shut  up  all  the  house  except  the 
rooms  on  the  first  floor,  in  which  she  and  Nora 
lived  alone.  She  kept  no  other  servant,  and 
200 


this  economy  it  was  that  enabled  her  to  give  to 
others.  She  had  almost  no  personal  wants,  and 
the  income  which  had  sufficed  for  her  mother  and 
herself  was  more  than  enough  for  her  alone.  A 
little  sting  of  injured  pride  there  had  been  at  first, 
when  her  poverty  became  apparent  to  the  neigh- 
bors, who  naturally  expected  her  to  enlarge  rather 
than  curtail  her  expenses  ;  but  she  soon  got  the 
better  of  this.  The  issues  of  her  life  were  in  a 
wider  field  than  mere  neighborhood  comment, 
and,  besides  this,  her  friends  and  associates  were 
now  chosen  chiefly  from  the  class  who  were  too 
ignorant  for  such  comment  and  speculation. 

For  Bettina  had  thrown  herself  with  a  pas- 
sionate fervor  into  the  work  which  her  hands  had 
found  to  do.  The  one  assuagement  for  the  pain 
in  her  own  heart  seemed  to  be  the  alleviation  of 
the  pain  in  other  hearts.  She  felt,  also,  a  sense 
of  thankfulness  for  the  knowledge  which  had 
come  to  her  through  the  rector,  which  made  the 
whole  work  and  service  of  her  life  seem  all  too 
little  for  her  to  give  in  return  for  this  boon.  As 
for  Horace,  her  feeling  for  him  was  akin  to  wor- 
ship. It  was  he  who  represented  to  her  hence- 
forth the  ideal  which,  like  a  fixed  star,  should 
give  light  to  her  path,  though  so  immeasurably 
far  above  her. 

201 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

What  a  strange  life  was  this  into  which  she  had 
now  entered !  She  felt  the  certainty  that  her 
courage  would  be  sufficient  for  it,  but  with  all 
her  resolution  she  could  not  always  keep  back 
the  bitter  tears  of  her  wordless,  hopeless,  uncon- 
trollable longing.  At  times  this  was  a  thing  so 
mighty  that  she  had  the  feeling  that,  if  her  body 
were  only  as  strong  as  her  spirit,  she  would  be 
able  to  swim  through  those  thousands  of  watery 
miles  that  separated  them,  only  to  tell  him  the 
truth,  and  then  lay  down  her  life  at  his  feet. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

IT  was  one  of  Bettina's  weary  days.  Its 
hours  had  lagged  and  dragged  until  the 
evening  had  come,  and  she  had  sunk  down, 
exhausted  and  depressed,  in  a  big  old-fashioned 
chair  in  front  of  her  wood  fire,  which  seemed 
the  only  ray  of  cheerfulness  within  or  without. 
She  had  had  these  feelings  before,  and  she 
knew  that  they  would  probably  pass,  but  never 
before  had  it  been  so  borne  in  upon  her  that  life 
was  sad  and  wretched  alike  for  those  whom  she 
was  trying  to  help  and  for  her  who  was  so  in 
need  of  help  herself — little  as  thoy  dreamed  it. 
Were  they  worth  helping,  those  poor  evil-envi- 
roned creatures  who  so  continually  disappointed 
her  hopes  and  efforts?  Was  she  worth  helping, 
either — weak,  aimless  creature  that  she  was — 
who  had  vowed  to  be  content  in  the  mere  con- 
sciousness that  Horace  lived,  and  that  he  had 
once  supremely  loved  her,  and  then  again  and 
again  had  fallen  into  this  hopeless  discontent 
203 


A    MANIFEST   DESTINY 

which  thirsted  so  for  what  she  had  pledged  her- 
self to  give  tip — the  possession  of  that  love  to 
satisfy  the  present  hour's  need  ? 

She  lay  back  in  the  big  deep  chair,  her  white 
hands  loosely  grasping  its  arms,  and  her  white 
lids  lowered.  Now  and  then  a  tear  would  trickle 
from  beneath  those  lids  and  a  slight  contraction 
of  pain  would  move  her  lips.  Any  one  looking 
in  upon  her  so  might  well  have  wondered  where 
were  the  friends  and  companions  of  this  beautiful, 
lonely  woman,  shut  into  this  small  room,  in  the 
silence  of  a  twilight  that  hung  damp  and  gray 
outside,  and  that  the  smouldering  fire  lighted 
but  fitfully  within,  while  the  low  murmur  of 
flames  fitfully  broke  the  silence. 

Not  a  sound  escaped  her  lips.  She  gazed 
longingly,  sadly  into  the  glowing  heart  of  the 
fire,  and  saw  visions  and  dreamed  dreams,  but 
not  pleasing  ones ;  they  only  served  to  make  her 
sadness  deeper. 

Presently  the  door  opened,  and  Nora  came  in 
with  the  lamp.  Glancing  at  her  mistress,  who 
did  not  move,  the  woman  then  went  out  and 
brought  a  small  tea-service  on  a  tray. 

"  Don't  light  the  kettle  yet,  Nora,"  said  a  low 
voice  from  the  depths  of  the  chair.  The  speaker 
did  not  move  ;  her  manner  was  that  of  a  person 
204 


A    MANIFEST   DESTINY 

who  deprecated  the  least  noise  or  intrusion,  and 
Nora  took  the  hint  and  silently  put  down  the 
tray.  Then,  in  the  same  dull  tone,  her  mistress 
said  : 

"1  know  you  want  to  go  to  church.  Go.  I 
can  make  tea  for  myself  when  I  want  it." 

Nora,  in  comprehending  silence,  left  the  room. 

Still  the  relaxed  figure  in  the  chair  moved  not. 
The  fire  whiffed  and  crackled  now  and  then, 
but  beyond  this  there  was  no  sound.  The 
lamplight  showed  more  plainly  the  fair  youth 
and  loveliness  of  that  black-clad  form,  which 
never,  in  its  most  brilliant  days,  had  looked  so 
exquisite  as  now,  when  there  was  none  to  gaze 
upon  its  beauty  or  to  share  its  solitude.  The 
hands  were  ringless,  for  Bettina  had  taken  off 
her  wedding-ring  after  the  reading  of  the  letter 
which  the  lawyer  had  brought  her,  and  with  it 
she  had  renounced  the  last  vestige  of  allegiance 
to  her  late  husband's  memory.  There  was  no 
bitterness  in  her  heart  toward  him.  Simply  he 
existed  not,  as  though  he  had  never  been. 

Vaguely  she  heard  the  sound  of  Nora's  depart- 
ure, as  the  door  was  closed  behind  her,  and  still 
she  sat  there  wordless,  motionless,  almost  breath- 
less as  it  appeared,  for  her  bosom  scarcely  seemed 
to  move. 

205 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

Presently  there  came  two  tears  from  under  the 
closed  lids ;  then  quickly  others  followed  them. 
The  sense  that  she  was  freed  even  from  the  danger 
of  Nora's  observation  weakened  her  more  and 
more.  Then  with  the  helpless,  whispering  tones 
of  an  unhappy  child,  she  said: 

"  My  God,  how  desolate  I  am  !  How  can  I 
bear  it?  How  long  must  it  endure?" 

Still  she  did  not  move  except  to  raise  her  lids 
and  cast  upward  her  tear-drenched  eyes,  while 
she  caught  her  lower  lip  between  her  teeth. 

Suddenly  there  was  a  step  upon  the  piazza — a 
man's  step,  as  if  in  haste.  She  started  and  sat 
upright.  Who  could  it  be  ?  No  man  except 
the  rector  ever  visited  her,  and  this  was  not  the 
rector's  step.  She  hastily  brushed  away  the 
traces  of  her  tears  and  sat  listening. 

Then  came  a  tap  at  the  door — not  loud,  but 
firm,  distinct,  decided.  It  sounded  strange  to 
her,  unlike  the  tap  of  any  messenger  or  servant 
who  had  ever  come  to  her  house. 

She  got  up,  leaving  the  door  of  the  sitting- 
room  open  that  the  light  might  enter  the  dark 
hall. 

Then,  most  unaccountably,  a  sense  of  fear, 
very  unusual  to  her,  seemed  to  possess  her.   She 
stood  still  a  moment  in  the  hall  and  waited. 
206 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

The  knock  was  repeated,  so  near  this  time 
that  it  made  her  start.  She  was  not  naturally  a 
timid  woman,  but  she  felt  a  sense  of  physical 
fear  which  was  totally  unreasoning.  What  harm 
was  likely  to  come  to  her  from  such  a  source  ? 
She  compelled  herself  to  go  forward  and  open 
the  door. 

It  was  very  dark  outside,  and  she  vaguely  dis- 
tinguished the  outline  of  a  tall  man  standing 
before  her.  The  light  from  the  open  door  at 
her  back  threw  out  her  figure  in  distinct  re- 
lief, and  it  was  evident  that  she  had  been  rec- 
ognized, for  a  voice  said,  in  low  but  distinct 
tones, 

"  Lady  Hurdly." 

She  gave  a  cry  and  pressed  both  hands  against 
her  breast,  sharply  drawing  in  her  breath.  Then 
she  took  a  few  steps  backward,  throwing  out 
one  hand  to  support  herself  against  the  wall. 

"  Forgive  me,"  said  the  well-known  voice — the 
voice  out  of  all  the  world  to  which  her  blood- 
beats  answered.  "  I  have  come  on  you  too  sud- 
denly. I  ought  to  have  written  and  asked  per- 
mission to  call.  I  should  have  done  so,  only  I 
feared  you  might  deny  me. " 

Somehow  the  door  was  closed  behind  them 
and  they  had  made  their  way  into  the  lighted 
207 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

room.     Bettina,  still  pale  and  breathless,  began 
to  murmur  some  excuses. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon ;  I  was  frightened.  Nora 
had  gone  out,  and  I  was  all  alone.  I  did  not 
know  who  it  might  be.  I  never  have  visitors, 
and  I  was  afraid  to  open  the  door." 

He  was  looking  at  her  keenly. 

"  You  should  not  be  alone  like  this/'  he  said, 
both  resentment  and  indignation  in  his  tone. 
"  Why  do  you  never  have  visitors  ?  Why  did 
Nora  leave  you  ?  Where  are  the  other  ser- 
vants?" 

"  There  are  no  others.  There  is  only  Nora," 
she  said,  recovering  herself  a  little.  "I  let  her 
go  to  church  to-night.  I  am  not  usually  afraid. 
Why  should  I  be?  Perhaps  I  am  not  very  well." 
As  she  uttered  these  incoherent  sentences  she 
sank  into  a  chair  and  he  took  one  near  her. 

The  expression  of  his  face  had  changed  from 
anxiety  to  a  stern  sadness. 

"  And  yon  live  alone  like  this,"  he  said,  "  with- 
out proper  service  or  protection  ?  And,  in  spite 
of  all  that  I  could  say  and  do,  you  will  not  take 
the  miserable  pittance  which  is  your  own,  and 
which  is  wasted  there  in  the  bank,  where  it  can 
avail  for  no  one  ?  Do  you  think  this  is  right  to 
yourself — or  kind  to  me  ?" 
208 


The  quiet  reproach  of  his  tone  disturbed  her. 

"  I  do  not  mean  to  be  unkind,"  she  said,  her 
voice  not  quite  steady,  "  and  indeed  I  have  all 
that  I  need.  Nora  has  more  than  time  to  attend 
to  me,  and  as  for  company,  it  is  because  I  do  not 
want  it  that  I  do  not  have  it." 

"  And  you  think  you  can  live  without  com- 
panionship ?"  he  said.  "  You  will  find  you  are 
mistaken ;  but  of  that  I  have  no  right  to  speak. 
There  is  one  subject,  however,  on  which  I  do 
claim  this  right,  and  it  is  the  fulfilment  of  this 
purpose  which  has  brought  me  to  America." 

"  You  came  all  this  way  to  see  me  ?"  she  said, 
lifting  her  brows  as  if  in  gentle  deprecation. 
"  You  were  always  kind."  Her  voice  broke  and 
she  said  no  more. 

"  It  is  not  a  question  of  kindness,"  he  said. 
"  It  is  a  matter  of  the  simplest  right  and  duty. 
Will  you  hear  me  ?  Are  you  able  to  hear  me  to- 
night, or  shall  I  come  again  to-morrow  ?" 

"  Speak  now,"  she  said.  "  I  am  perfectly  well, 
and  am  ready  to  hear  whatever  you  may  have  to 
say." 

Her  voice  gave  proof  of  a  recovered  self-con- 
trol. .  The  necessity  of  making  this  a  final  in- 
terview between  them  was  borne  in  upon  her, 
and  sitting  very  still  and  erect,  with  her  hands 
o  209 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

clasped  tightly  together,  she  waited  to  hear  what 
he  might  say. 

"  Your  leaving  England  so  suddenly,"  he  be- 
gan, "was,  as  I  need  not  say,  a  disappointment 
to  me.  I  had  hoped  to  change  your  mind  and 
purpose  concerning  the  acceptance  not  only  of 
money  which  is  your  own  by  legal  right,  but  of 
such  as  is  also  yours  by  every  rational  law  of 
possession.  It  was  to  me  an  insupportable  idea 
that  you  should  go  away  without  the  means  of 
living  as  becomes  your  rank  and  station." 

Bettina,  with  a  rather  chill  smile,  shook  her 
head. 

"  Eank  and  station  I  have  none,"  she  said. 
"I  have  money  enough  to  live  as  becomes  my 
mother's  child ;  that  I  am,  and  no  more.  It  is 
the  only  bond  to  the  past  which  I  acknowledge. 
The  name  and  title  which  I  bore  a  little  while 
were  never  mine  in  a  real  and  true  sense.  I  do 
not  care  to  speak  of  it;  it  is  all  past;  but  the 
very  fact  that  your  cousin  saw  fit  to  leave  me 
with  what  you  call  a  mere  pittance  shows  that 
he  felt  the  distance,  the  lack  of  union,  between 
us,  as  I  felt  and  feel  it." 

It  was  a  relief  to  her  to  say  this  much.  He 
could  gather  nothing  from  it,  and  she  wanted 
him  to  know  that  she  had  freed  her  soul  from 
210 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

every  vestige  of  its  bondage  to  the  man  whom 
she  chose  to  designate  as  his  cousin  rather  than 
by  any  relationship  to  herself — even  a  past  one. 
This  point  did  not  escape  him. 

"  It  is  with  humiliation  that  I  receive  your  re- 
minder that  that  man  was,  in  flesh  and  blood  at 
least,  akin  to  me,"  was  the  answer ;  "  and  for 
that  reason  I  have  felt  it  to  be  my  duty  to  make 
whatever  poor  reparation  may  be  in  my  power 
for  the  evil  that  he  has  done." 

He  spoke  with  extreme  seriousness,  and  there 
was  a  tone  in  his  last  words  which  conveyed  to 
Bettina  the  suspicion  that  they  referred  to  some- 
thing more  than  any  act  of  Lord  Hurdly's  which 
had  heretofore  been  mentioned  between  them.  - 

She  waited,  therefore,  in  some  agitation  to  hear 
what  his  next  words  should  be. 

"I  shall  have  to  ask  your  forgiveness,"  he 
said,  "  for  touching  upon  a  matter  which  might 
well  seem  to  be  an  impertinence  on  my  part. 
The  necessity  is  forced  upon  me,  however,  and 
I  shall  be  as  brief  as  possible,  if  you  will  be  good 
enough  to  listen." 

Bettina  answered  merely  by  a  bend  of  the 
head. 

"  As  long  as  I  can  remember,"  he  began,  "  I 
have  had  a  certain  instinctive  distrust  of  the 
211 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

late  Lord  Hurdly.  It  grew  with  my  growth; 
but  I  never  thought  it  proper,  under  the  then 
existing  circumstances,  to  give  expression  to 
it.  As  time  went  on,  observation  confirmed  in- 
stinct, and  it  became  evident  to  me  that  he 
was  a  man  of  powerful  will,  and  was  more  or 
less  unscrupulous  in  the  attainment  of  its  ends. 
After  his  death,  in  going  into  the  affairs  of  the 
estate,  and  various  other  matters  which  came 
under  my  observation,  I  found  that  the  truths 
laid  bare  before  me  revealed  him  as  a  far  worse 
man  even  than  I  had  imagined.  It  was  a  revolt- 
ing manifestation  in  every  sense  ;  but  even  when 
those  matters  had  been  closed  up — when  I  sup- 
posed that  I  was  done  with  the  man  and  aware 
of  the  worst — a  revelation  was  made  to  me 
which,  though  of  a  piece  with  the  rest,  and  no 
worse  in  its  essence  and  kind,  came  home  to 
me  with  a  thousandfold  intensity,  from  the  fact 
that  it  nearly  concerned  both  myself  and  you." 

Bettina's  heart  beat  wildly.  She  dared  not 
look  at  him,  and  with  an  instinct  to  protect 
herself  from  betrayal  at  every  cost,  she  said,  in 
a  voice  which  was  so  cool  and  calm  that  the 
sound  of  it  surprised  her  as  it  fell  upon  her  ear  : 

"  Go  on.     Explain  yourself." 

She  had  taken  up  a  paper  from  the  table  and 
212 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

was  using  it  as  if  to  screen  her  face  from  the 
fire,  but  she  managed  to  get  somewhat  in  the 
shadow  of  it,  so  that  her  companion  had  only  a 
partial  view  of  her  features  and  expression.  In 
this  position,  with  her  eyes  bent  upon  the  fire, 
her  countenance  was  wholly  inscrutable  to  him. 
There  was  a  moment's  silence  before  he  con- 
tinued. 

"  How  far  the  explanation  is  necessary,"  he 
said,  "I  do  not  know.  I  am  aware  that  you 
received  a  sealed  letter,  through  Cortlin,  from 
a  man  named  Pitzwilliam  Clarke,  who  is  now 
dead.  What  that  letter  contained  is  your  own 
affair.  I  also  received  a  letter  from  the  same 
source  and  by  the  same  hand.  It  is  of  the 
revelation  contained  in  that  letter  that  I  am 
come  to  speak  to  you." 

Bettina  hardly  knew  whether  she  was  wak- 
ing or  sleeping.  The  astounding  suddenness  of 
the  consciousness  which  had  come  to  her  now 
seemed  to  stun  both  her  body  and  her  mind. 
She  made  no  sign,  however,  as  she  sat  absolute- 
ly still,  and  her  companion  went  on. 

"  The  letter  to  you  was  delivered,  you  remem- 
ber, before  my  return  to  England.  The  interval 
which  elapsed  before  the  delivery  of  the  letter 
to  me — which  occurred  scarcely  more  than  a 
213 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

week  ago — was  due  to  the  fact  that  Cortlin  had 
been  instructed  to  put  each  of  these  letters  into 
the  hands  of  none  but  the  man  and  woman  to 
whom  they  were  addressed.  In  the  second  in- 
stance he  was  prevented  by  illness  from  the 
prompt  performance  of  his  duty.  He  has  had  a 
long  and  serious  attack  of  fever.  As  soon  as  his 
condition  of  health  permitted  he  sent  for  me 
and  put  the  letter  into  my  hands,  telling  me 
that  he  was  ignorant  as  to  its  contents,  but  that 
a  letter  from  the  same  source  had  been  delivered 
to  you  by  him  immediately  after  the  death  of 
the  scoundrel  whose  treachery  had  betrayed  you 
into  a  marriage  with  him." 

Bettina  could  not  speak  or  look  at  him.  The 
thoughts  which  were  seething  through  her  brain 
were  too  confused  for  speech.  One  thing,  how- 
ever, was  quite  clear  to  her.  The  resentment 
that  this  man  so  fiercely  manifested  was  for  her 
sake,  not  his  own.  His  anger  was  an  imper- 
sonal thing.  He  had  a  manly  and  chivalrous 
nature,  and  the  mere  fact  that  her  mother  had 
once  committed  her  into  his  keeping  would  con- 
stitute a  strong  claim  on  such  a  nature.  He 
was  outraged  that  a  countryman  and  kinsman 
of  his  own  could  so  villanously  have  duped  her.' ' 
As  for  his  own  wrongs  in  the  matter,  he  ap- 
214 


parently  did  not  consider  these.  For  all  con- 
sciousness of  them  in  his  words  and  tones  they 
might  never  have  existed. 

While  these  thoughts  were  passing  through  her 
mind,  he  had  risen,  and  was  pacing  the  floor 
with  restless  strides.  Now  he  paused  in  front 
of  her  and  said  : 

"  I  trust  it  may  not  seem  to  you  that  I  did 
wrong  to  come  to  you  and  tell  you  of  the  revela- 
tion that  had  been  made  to  me.  I  have  done  it 
in  the  belief  that  the  letter  which  you  received 
conveyed  the  same  information.  May  I  be  al- 
lowed to  know  if  this  is  true  ?" 

Bettina  bent  her  head,  but  said  no  more. 

"  Then  I  feel  myself  justified  in  having  come," 
he  said,  in  a  tone  of  relief.  "If  I  could  have 
known  you  ignorant  of  the  infamous  wrong  that 
was  done  you,  by  the  unscrupulous  means  used 
to  beguile  you  into  a  marriage  which  must  so 
have  tortured  and  humiliated  any  woman,  I 
might  have  kept  silent.  It  might  perhaps  have 
been  best  to  omit  from  the  list  of  the  wrongs  you 
must  have  suffered  this  crowning  infamy  of  all. 
But  since  it  seemed  certain  that  you  knew  it,  and 
since  it  had  doubtless  been  the  reason  of  your 
refusing  to  touch  the  money  which  was  so  right- 
fully your  due,  and  of  your  leaving  the  country 
215 


where  this  great  wrong  had  been  done  you,  I 
could  not  rest  until  I  had  spoken.  I  could  not 
still  the  longing  to  give  you  a  certain  solace 
which  I  hoped  it  might  be  in  my  power  to  give. 
I  knew  how  sad  and  lonely  you  were.  I  had 
written  to  the  rector  and  asked  for  tidings  of 
you." 

"You  had?  He  never  told  me,"  she  said, 
wonderingly. 

"I  particularly  bound  him  not  to  do  so ;  but  I 
did  write  more  than  once,  and  got  his  answers. 
In  that  way  it  came  to  me  that  you  were  un- 
happy—  courageously  and  unselfishly,  yet  pro- 
foundly so,  and  it  was  not  difficult  for  me  to 
comprehend  the  reason.  You  will  forgive  me 
for  going  into  a  dead  and  buried  issue  for  this 
once;  but  I  knew  your  nature,  and  it  was  ob- 
vious to  me  that  you  were  torturing  yourself 
because  you  felt  that  you  had  done  a  wrong  to 
me." 

Bettina  caught  her  breath  suddenly,  and  cov- 
ered her  face  with  her  hands. 

"Is  it  not  so  ?"  he  said. 

But  she  could  not  speak.  The  shrinking  an- 
guish of  her  whole  attitude  was  her  only  answer. 

Then  he  took  the  seat  nearest  her,  and  said : 

"It  is  with  the  hope  of  lifting  this  totally  un- 
216 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

necessary  burden  from  your  mind  that  I  have 
come.  I  beg  you  to  have  patience  with  me  while 
I  speak  to  you  quite  simply  and  tell  you  why 
you  would  be  doing  wrong  to  blame  yourself  on 
my  account.  For  this  once  I  must  ask  you  to 
let  me  speak  of  the  past — not  the  recent  past — 
let  us  consider  that  in  its  grave  forever — but  the 
remote  past,  in  which  for  a  short  while  I  had  a 
share.  I,  too,  have  my  confession  to  make  and 
pardon  to  beg,  for  I  am  conscious  that  I  wronged 
you,  though  it  was  through  ignorance,  youth, 
inexperience,  and  also — forgive  me  for  mention- 
ing it,  but  it  is  my  best  justification — also  because 
I  loved  you,  with  a  love  which  I  was  then  too  ig- 
norant even  to  comprehend.  I  needs  must  beg 
you  to  remember  that,  in  owning  my  great  wrong 
to  you.  This  wrong,"  he  continued,  after  an  in- 
stant's pause,  "consisted  in  my  urging  yon  to 
marry  me  when  you  did  not  love  me.  I  feared 
it  was  so,  even  then ;  but  I  was  selfish ;  I  thought 
of  myself  and  not  of  you.  When  the  whispered 
misgiving  would  rise  up  in  my  mind  I  forced  it 
down  by  vowing  that  if  you  did  not  already  love 
me  I  could  and  would  make  you  do  so.  When 
the  blow  fell,  and  I  knew  that  I  had  lost  you,  I 
knew  that  my  selfishness  in  thinking  chiefly  of 
my  own  happiness  had  been  properly  rewarded. 
217 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

At  least  this  was  the  feeling  that  possessed  my 
heart  after  the  first.  You  were  young,  confid- 
ing, inexperienced.  I  knew  better  than  you  pos- 
sibly could  know  that  you  did  not  love  me. 
Later,  you  knew  it  also." 

He  waited,  as  if  for  her  response.  From  be- 
hind her  close-pressed  hands  the  answer  came. 

"Yes/'  she  said,  lowly,  "I  have  long  known 
that  it  was  a  mistake  on  my  part.  You  are  right. 
I  did  not  love  you." 

Had  she  been  looking,  she  would  have  seen  a 
shadow  cross  his  face — a  very  faint  one,  as  the 
hope  that  it  obscured  had  been  faint  also. 

"  Therefore,"  he  said,  "  I  took  advantage  of 
you,  and  obtained  from  you  a  promise  which  I 
should  never  have  asked.  I  want  you  to  feel 
that  I  realize  the  wrong  I  did  you  in  that,  and 
ask  your  forgiveness  for  it." 

Slowly  she  lowered  her  hands  and  looked  at 
him. 

"And  yon  can  ask  forgiveness  of  me  ?"  she  said. 

' '  I  humbly  beg  it — as  on  my  knees." 

"  Then  what  should  be  my  attitude  to  you?" 

"  The  proud  and  upright  one  of  never  having 
done  me  any  conscious  wrong." 

"  But  when  I  left  you,  rejected  you,  threw 
you  off—" 

218 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"  That  was  not  done  to  me,  but  to  the  man 
you  supposed  me  to  be — the  man  who  had  been 
proved  to  you  a  scoundrel,  by  such  proof  as  any 
one  would  have  deemed  you  mad  to  doubt." 

She  looked  at  him  somewhat  timidly. 

"  You  are  generous  indeed,"  she  said. 

"  I  am  no  whit  more  than  just.  You  were  ab- 
solutely warranted  in  such  a  course  toward  me. 
What  I  long  to  do  —  what  I  have  crossed  the 
world  in  the  hope  of  doing — is  to  get  you  to  for- 
give yourself,  to  free  yourself  of  a  hallucination 
which  is  casting  a  needless  shadow  on  your  life." 

"Oh,  you  are  good — good!"  she  said.  "I 
never  knew  so  kind  a  heart.  Therefore  must 
my  unending  misery  be  the  greater  that  I  have 
once  wounded  it." 

"  That  consciousness  should  have  no  sting  for 
you  hereafter.  You  did  it  in  utter  ignorance. 
I  cannot  claim  that  I  was  half  so  ignorant  in  my 
wrong  toward  you.  But  surely  we  may  remem- 
ber that  we  have  once  been  friends,  and  so  we 
may  feel  that  there  is  full  and  free  forgiveness 
between  us  before  we  part." 

She  did  not  speak.  That  last  word  had  pierced 
too  deeply  to  her  heart. 

"You  do  forgive  me — do  you  not  ?"  he  said, 
as  if  he  misunderstood  her  silence. 
219 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"I  thank  yon — I  bless  yon — I  seek  ?/0«r  for- 
giveness," she  said. 

At  these  last  words  he  smiled — a  smile  that 
had  a  certain  bitterness  in  it.  Then  suddenly 
his  face  became  rigidly  grave. 

"  If  I  had  not  given  yon  my  forgiveness,  long 
ago,"  he  said,  "  I  shonld  like  to  offer  it  to  you 
now,  at  a  price.  I  wish  to  God  that  I  could." 

"  What  do  yon  mean  ?"  she  said,  a  sweet  per- 
plexity npon  her  face.  "  What  price  have  I  to 
pay  for  anything  ?" 

"Ah,  there  it  is  !  It  may  seem  brutal  of  me 
to  put  a  literal  construction  npon  what  yon 
have  used  as  a  figure  of  speech,  but  let  the 
truth  come  out.  Yon  are  poor,  unprotected, 
alone,  and  yon  ask  me  to  go  and  leave  you  so! 
God  knows  it  is  little  enough  that  I  have  it 
in  my  power  to  do,  but  the  possession  of  money 
would  enable  you  at  least  to  live  as  it  becomes 
yon  to  live.  I  do  not  speak  of  your  title — it  is 
not  what  you  are  called,  but  what  yon  are,  that 
I  have  in  mind.  If  yon  had  money,  even  the 
small  income  which  I  so  desire  that  you  shall 
accept,  your  life  would  be  different." 

But  Bettina  looked  away  from  him,  and  shook 
her  head  in  the  gentle  negation  which  he  knew 
to  be  so  final. 

230 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"  How  would  my  life  be  different  ?"  she  said. 

"You  could  make  it  so." 

"  In  what  way  ?" 

"You  could  travel,  for  one  thing/' 

"  I  do  not  want  to  travel.  I  desired  it  once, 
and  I  got  my  wish.  But  with  it  came  a  wretched- 
ness that  all  the  travelling  in  the  world  could  not 
carry  me  away  from." 

"  Then  what  is  to  be  your  life  ?" 

"What  you  see  it  now.  I  do  not  wish  to 
change  it  for  any  other.  I  have  tried  the  world 
and  its  rewards.  There  is  nothing  in  them." 

Her  tone  of  absolute,  unexpectant  decision 
maddened  him. 

"  My  God,  Bettina !"  he  exclaimed,  too  excited 
to  notice  that  the  name  had  escaped  him.  "  Are 
you  in  earnest  ?  Can  you  mean  it  ?  I  wish  I 
could  believe  that  you  did  not.  But  there  is  a 
deadly  reality  about  you  now  which  makes  me 
fear  that  you  will  keep  your  word.  That  you 
should  spend  your  life  in  this  isolation,  that  you 
—you—" 

He  broke  off,  as  if  words  failed  him. 

"What  better  can  I  do?"  she  said.     "You 

must  not  think  of  me  as  idle  and  useless.     I  am 

going  to  try  not  to  be  that.    I  have  tried  a  little. 

Ask  the  rector.    And  I  am  going  to  try  more. 

221 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

There  is  but  one  thing  that  I  deeply  desire,  and 
that  is  to  be  a  better  woman  than  I  have  been  in 
the  past.  Oh,  I  will  try  hard — I  will,  indeed  I 
•will — to  do  a  little  good  in  the  future,  to  make 
up  for  all  the  harm  I  have  done  !" 

She  ceased,  her  voice  failing  her,  and  as  she 
looked  at  the  man  standing  near  her  she  saw  that 
he  was  scarcely  listening.  Some  intense  preoc- 
cupation made  him  take  in  but  vaguely  what  she 
was  saying.  She  saw  that  he  was  deeply  moved 
in  some  way,  and  the  consciousness  that  this  was 
so  gave  her  a  sense  of  alarm.  She  felt  her  own 
will  weakening,  and  she  knew  that  somehow  she 
must  get  this  parting  over,  if  her  strength  were 
to  suffice  for  it. 

"  Good-bye,"  she  said,  holding  out  her  hand. 
"  Don't  be  too  sorry  for  me.  You  have  lightened 
my  heart  inexpressibly  by  what  you  have  told  me. 
Now  that  I  can  feel  that  you  know  all — that,  wrong 
and  wicked  as  I  was,  I  was  not  so  false  as  it  seemed 
— I  can  bear  the  future  with  courage.  I  am  sure 
of  it.  I  want  to  say  good-bye  now,  because  I 
prefer  not  to  see  you  again.  You  would  only  try 
to  shake  me  in  a  determination  that  is  not  to  be 
shaken.  Don't  trouble  about  me — please  don't," 
she  added.  "  I  have  health  and  youth,  and  these 
will  suffice  me  for  what  I  have  to  do." 
222 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

"  Health  and  youth  !"  he  cried,  ignoring  her 
proffered  hand,  and  throwing  his  own  hands  up 
in  a  gesture  of  repudiation.  "  And  what  do  these 
signify  in  a  situation  such  as  yours  ?  They  only 
mean  that  you  will  prolong  an  existence  which, 
for  such  a  woman  as  you,  seems  worse  than  death. 
You  ask  me  to  leave  you  so  ?  To  say  good- 
bye—" 

"Yes,  I  beg  it,  I  implore  it,  I  insist  upon  it," 
she  interrupted  him,  feeling  that  her  strength 
was  almost  gone.  "  You  have  said  that  you  were 
willing  to  do  me  a  service — then  leave  me." 

She  sank  back  in  her  chair  exhausted. 

"  My  God  !  am  I  a  brute  ?"  he  said.  .  "  Have  I 
made  you  ill  with  my  idiotic  persistency  ?  I  will 
go.  I  will  rid  you  of  the  distress  and  annoyance 
of  my  presence.  But  before  I  go,  Bettina,"  he 
said,  with  a  sudden  break  in  his  voice,  "  I  must 
and  will  satisfy  my  heart  by  one  thing  :  I  must, 
for  the  sake  of  my  own  soul's  peace,  tell  you  this. 
I  have  never  ceased  to  love  you,  and  I  never  shall. 
I  gave  you  up  when  I  saw  the  renunciation  to  be 
inevitable,  but  I  knew  then,  as  I  know  now,  that 
I  can  never  put  any  other  in  your  place.  You 
were  the  love  of  my  youth,  and  you  will  be  the 
love  of  my  old  age,  if  my  lonely  life  goes  on  till 
then.  Don't  turn  from  me.  Don't  hide  your 
223 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

face  like  that.  I  ask  nothing  but  this  sacred 
right  to  apeak.  I  know  you  never  loved  me.  I 
know  it  ia  not  in  me — if,  indeed,  it  be  in  any  mor- 
tal man — to  enter  into  the  heaven  of  being  loved 
by  you.  But,  at  least,  you  have  been  the  vision 
in  my  life — the  sacred  manifestation  of  what  girl 
and  sweetheart  and  woman  and  wife  might  be — 
and  for  that  I  thank  you.  In  the  shadow  of  that 
beatific  vision  I  shall  walk  henceforth,  and  be- 
lieve me  when  I  say  that  I  shall  walk  there 
alone. " 

Bettina,  with  her  face  buried  in  her  hands,  re- 
mained profoundly  still.  When  he  had  waited 
a  moment  he  began  to  fear  that  he  had  over- 
taxed her  strength  too  far,  and  that  she  might 
have  fainted. 

Kneeling  in  front  of  her,  he  took  her  two 
wrists  gently  in  his  hands  and  tried  to  draw  them 
away  from  her  eyes.  The  strong  resistance  that 
she  made  to  this  gave  evidence  enough  that  she 
was  conscious  in  every  sentient  nerve. 

"  Forgive  me,"  he  said  ;  "I  am  going — I  have 
been  wrong  to  force  all  this  upon  you — but  it  is 
the  last  time  that  we  shall  meet.  Let  me,  I  pray 
you,  see  your  face  once  more  before  I  turn  away 
from  it  forever." 

The  tense  hands  relaxed  within  his  grasp,  but 
224 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

he  caught  no  more  than  a  second's  glimpse  of 
the  beautiful  face  before  it  was  hid  against  his 
shoulder. 

At  the  same  instant  a  low  voice  whispered  in 
his  ear : 

"Don't  move  until  I  speak  to  you/' 

Overwhelmed  with  wonder,  he  felt  the  hands 
which  he  had  grasped  now  holding  fast  his  own, 
that  she  might  compel  him  to  the  stillness  which 
she  had  commanded.  Then  the  soft  voice  at  his 
ear  went  on : 

"You  were  right  in  saying  that  I  did  not  love 
you — that  yon  would  have  urged  me  into  a  mar- 
riage to  which  I  could  not  have  brought  the  true 
feeling.  I  did  not  know  it  then,  but  I  know  it 
now.  And  I  know  it  now  because — because — " 
her  voice  trembled  and  her  breath  came  quick — 
"because  now  I  do  love  you.  Oh,  Horace,  bet- 
ter love  than  this  man  could  not  have  or  woman 
give." 

She  ended  in  a  burst  of  tears,  and  her  exhausted 
body  leaned  against  him  for  support. 

For  a  moment  he  felt  an  amazement  so  over- 
whelming that  he  seemed  half  unconscious  from 
the  whirling  in  his  brain.  Then,  as  a  lightning 
flash  lights  up  the  whole  dark  heaven  in  an  in- 
stant's time,  the  truth  was  revealed  to  him,  and, 
p  225 


A    MANIFEST    DESTINY 

with  that   consciousness,  his   arms  were  tight 
about  her  and  his  kisses  on  her  lips. 

If  he  questioned  her  at  all,  it  was  with  his 
spirit,  and  her  answer  came  in  that  ineffable 
sense  of  union  which  fused  their  souls  in  one. 
For  long  still  moments  they  rested  so,  in  that 
embrace,  and  when  they  moved  apart  and  looked 
into  each  other's  eyes  it  was  to  take  up  forever 
that  united  life  which  was  to  bind  them  in  true 
marriage. 

When  Nora  returned  from  church  she  found 
them  sitting  quietly  before  the  fire,  the  lamp 
burning  brightly  under  the  kettle,  from  which 
the  Lady  Hurdly  that  was  and  was  to  be  had  just 
made  tea  for  her  lord. 


THE  END 


BY  MARY  E.  WILKINS 


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The  simplicity,  purity,  and  quaintness  of  these  stories  set  them  apart 
In  a  niche  of  distinction  where  they  have  no  rivals. — Literary  World, 
Boston. 

The  charm  of  Miss  Wilkins's  stories  is  in  her  intimate  acquaintance 
and  comprehension  of  humble  life,  and  the  sweet  human  interest  she 
feels  and  makes  her  readers  partake  of,  in  the  simple,  common,  homely 
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chief  value  of  her  work.  That  will  be  found  in  its  genuine- 
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tion and  delightful  humor. — Chicago  Tribune. 

Mrs.  Stuart  is  a  genuine  humorist. — N.  Y.  Mail  and  Express. 

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sketches. — Watchman,  Boston. 


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BY  LILIAN  BELL 


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The  spirit  of  fun  is  found  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  in  all 
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Miss  Pool's  novels  have  the  characteristic  qualities  of 
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went  with  her  to  tent  and  fort,  but  it  inheres  in  her  narrative 
none  the  less,  and  as  a  consequence  "  these  simple  annals  of 
our  daily  life,"  as  she  calls  them,  are  never  dull  nor  unin- 
teresting.— Evangelist,  N.  Y. 

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